Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - Sex and Scandal of Medieval Royals

Episode Date: November 14, 2025

What did Queen Isabella of France do to deserve the nickname She-Wolf? What sex scandals happened in the 14th century? And why did the Black Death improve peoples' sex lives?!Joining Kate today is the fantastic author and historian, Helen Carr, to take us back to this time to find out.This episode was edited by Tim Arstall and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, my lovely Bertwixters, it's me, Kate Lister, and you are listening to Betwit's The Sheeds. And because we care about elf and safety around these parts, I have to tell you. This is an adult podcast, broken by adults to other adults about adulty things in an adulty way, covering a range of adults' subjects and you should be an adult too. Oh my God, I feel safer.

Do you feel safer? Then let's proceed together. It is March 1325, and we are down on the cliffs of Dover. overlooking the choppy waters. And I am definitely not here for a cold swim. No, thank you. I am here because on the beach down below, Queen Isabella of France is making a diplomatic journey back to her homeland.

And leaving her husband, King Edward II, behind, to boot. Why does this journey become fateful for Edward's reign? Why does Isabella get the frankly fantastic name, the She-Wolf of France? It's all built into some seriously sourcing. historical scandal and I can't wait to find out more. Oh and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society with me, Kate Lister. You know that if historical chroniclers are calling you

the She-Wolf of France, then you are doing something right. God, I'll have a grandiose nickname like that. The She-Wolf of Yorkshire. Well, maybe not. I'll have to downgrade myself a little bit there. The she cockapoo of Yorkshire. No, that's fine. We'll move along. But Isabella of France definitely deserved her nickname of the She-Wolf of France, because she pissed quite a few people off.

English nobleman, mostly, with how she played them in the 14th century. Do you want to find out more? Well, I know I do. Joining me today is historian and author Helen Carr, and she is going to help us get to know this woman, her husband, and her reputation a little bit better. So without further ado, let's crack on. Hello, and welcome to Betwicks the Sheets. It's only Helen Carr. How are you doing?

I'm very well. so much for having me. Oh, I'm absolutely thrilled to have you here. Well, it's great to be on a big fan of a podcast and it always keeps me entertained. So it's a joy to be here talking about royal sex in the Middle Ages. Well, you are one of the perfect people to talk to about this because you have just done a history hit documentary on Edward the 2nd, but you're also the author of Scepid Isle, a new history of the 14th century. Helm, what is it about the 14th century that you love so very? Very, very. much, when did you zoning it on that? And you went, no, it's not 12th, it's not 15th, it's 14th, that's

me. With so many historians, I mean, you must have this when you speak to people. I sort of feel like the period that you're interested in finds you as much as you find it. And it's, somehow you're drawn to all these different things that are going on and they all seem to be happening around the same time. So for me, it was this sort of mixture of chivalry and tournaments and jousting in the Hundred Years' War and Edward III dressing up as a pheasant at parties. Then you've got the Black Death and you've got the Great Famine and there's war and there's war with Scotland and you've got a king like Edward II who's constantly getting everything wrong and it's also I suppose the monarchs that reign over the course of this century, Edward the

second, Edward the third in the middle and then the notoriously bad King Richard the second right at the end sort of you have this sandwich of two bad kings as the bread and then the seemingly good king and the fun king as the one in the middle. So I found the politics and the social history all combined fascinating. When you say it like that, it was a pretty mad time to be alive. I mean, wherever you go throughout history, it's got its quirks, shall we say. But I mean, the black death, like, wow. Yeah, extraordinary.

I don't think, I mean, you get it a lot of people comparing it to COVID. I just, I think it is incomparable. I think people do that because that's like our only familiarity with a big illness. And like that's our tiny little thing that we can hook onto it. And when you think that like COVID has a death rate of, oh, I can't remember what it is, but like the black death is almost 100%. And what how many people did it wipe out?

Because the estimates vary, don't they? Yeah, it's difficult to really know. But it's probably loosely estimated at around 50% if not slightly more. And slightly more in certain spaces. I know, completely mad. Like 50% of the people you know. No. 50% of your friends, 50% of your family, but also 50% of the people that you just encounter

in your daily life. Like we saw how, again, sorry for the COVID comparison, but we saw how quickly our infrastructure crumbled when people couldn't go out to work and how fragile it is. Now imagine half of them were dead. Like it would just grind to a halt, wouldn't it? And it absolutely did. And what's so interesting is this period after the Black Death, where we're trying to sort of understand what was it like to exist.

in the world in this time, a lot of people had to be incredibly innovative. So on a more kind of like prosaic level, things like finding the machinery to grind grain rather than grinding it yourself to make bread. So you see a lot more water mills being built and put in place because there just wasn't enough manpower to be able to do it. But you also saw women stepping into roles that men would traditionally occupy, like a lot of more women became armourers, women also who were already brewsters at the time, so women brewing ale.

but they used to brew them in the home and then after the Black Death they went into brew houses so effectively the early pubs and it was women who were brewing the ale and they created these spaces which must have been an amazing space for all these women to combine and share chats and life experience.

So what we need to destroy the patriarchy really is a global pandemic with a 50% mortality rate and then we might be getting somewhere. Yeah and then we can all just go and start bring dinner again like the good old days. That we shouldn't wish for such things. That's terrible. It's brewing gin.

That's also probably not the right way of putting it. That's you out straight away. Yeah, exactly. Get out. That would be absolutely pathetic. I do remember looking at all the politicians and everyone trying to lead us through that, not particularly well. But I do remember thinking as shitter job as I think that they're doing,

I'm glad I don't have to do this job. I'm very, very glad that it doesn't fall to me to try and manage this. Who was managing the black death? Well, firstly, Kate, I mean, you probably would have done a better job. I probably would have done, yeah, you're right. But who was managing the Black Death? I mean, I think it was an impossible thing to manage. The King and his government, but the King and his government put in some sanitary protection.

They made sure that plague pits weren't being dug within the city walls. They were trying to put them outside of the city walls to avoid contamination. There was a general effort to try and clean up the streets concerned that it was coming from a general smell. There was this idea that it was from the smell of the, of the streets and the smell of dead bodies that people were inhaling plague and becoming sick with it. So there was a general effort to clean up the streets effectively. But mostly it was just trying to avoid people coming into contact with each other. So they abandoned Parliament for the period of plague. And often you saw it going on into the 14th century where Parliament

would be cancelled because there was a wave of plague moving through the city or Parliament was moved elsewhere into the countryside. And you saw people, you know, as they did into the 16th and 17th centuries, they would just leave the city in the summer and they would head off to the countryside into their nice big houses. So it was right for them. And Edward III, he was the king at the time, spent the entirety of that first really dramatic wave of plague at his country residence in Woodstock. And so he didn't really, he didn't really come into contact with it in the same way as people who were living in close, you know, quarters, like in the city in London or in any sorts of market towns would have done.

And it was particularly virulent on the ports. So you saw trade starting to, you know, completely cease to continue. Everything was being sort of shut down. Effectively, a medieval lockdown. Yeah. It just must have been such a crazy, crazy time. I'm going to get distracted now. I can't talk to about the plague.

I want to now. I want to ask more questions. But I'm going to stay focused on what we're here. How much were people having during the plague? Quite a lot, apparently. Yeah. Yeah, but quite a lot. So apparently there are some sources that talk about how women became particularly.

licentious during the plague years. They'd often be plague on everything. They blamed plague on ridiculous fashion, so people being exposing too much flesh. They blamed it on children, not doing as their parents were told, which frankly is probably true. And they blamed it on women being overtly sexual.

And apparently you saw women sort of chasing men around at the end of the plague. So it was desperately trying to get smacking. I do you know what? I can kind of understand. Like, if you're, you're faced with that. They had no fucking clear what was going on. They'd, they'd know, like

these punishment from God, we're all going to die. Who knows? Yeah, you'd be ripping the knickers off one another, wouldn't you? Yeah, also. Also, if you were married to John the Brewer and he died of plague, you'd always had your eye on Jack Profatcher. And Jack McFatcher was alive. It'd be like, let's get on with it. Let's just do it.

Life's living, because we don't know how long we've got. I can understand that, but I mean, it must have been quite a chaotic environment. Let's talk about Edward the second. Yeah, the king who didn't experience the plague. Let's look about him. He didn't experience

the plague, but I'm just thinking like this whole century is an absolute cluster fuck. There's so much going on. And what you'd really want is a stable leadership that you could be like, all right, there's wars and famine, but he's going to get us through this. Was he that king?

Absolutely not. And he wasn't that king because he could not rule independently and he could not rule effectively. So he didn't understand that he as King was supposed to have a good relationship with his nobility and they were effectively meant to work as a team with him as the leader at the top. And he was supposed to rule government fairly. He was supposed to think about the realm, put the realm first, put the people first. But instead he all had a habit of putting his

favourites first. And I think this came down to insecurity. He was somebody who never really had the disposition or the sort of mental clarity that kingship required. He was fun. He was a nice guide to be around. He was super generous. And what's interesting about Edward II is he's often portrayed as this sort of foe. Like, you know, in Braveheart, there's the Edwig II. He's walking around Westminster's Palace with a mirror.

And he's like draping himself in all these furs and nice velvets in his makeup. And actually, he wasn't like that at all. He was, he was pretty masculine, who's good at war. he was good at fighting. He fought the battle of Bannock Burn. He was a good leader in that respect. And he liked sport. He loved things like what's been called as rustic pursuits.

So he loved going and helping people like thatch roofs and digging ditches. That's slightly odd if the king came to help you deat that's your roof. That's a moment, isn't it? It's like, what the fuck is going on? Yeah, exactly. It's like when you spot a celebrity and you sort of chat with them in a really, if there's a scenario and you're like, this is strange. Why would he suddenly want to?

Right, okay, all right. So he's hands-on. That apparently was his thing. He's quite hands-on. He's, you know, he loves giving gifts to people. He's also very close to his sisters, but he's never really grown up with brothers. So he's not grown up.

Yeah, he sounds nice. And initially, I think he was quite a nice guy. But he didn't get on with this nobility because he always had this great mate who he wanted to give all of the responsibility to. And we know that in kingship, from way back all the way through to, you know, present day, that doesn't work if you're in a position of power and leadership.

And his most famous friend and his favourite person most famously was Piers Gaviston, who was a household night, he was a squire who had come from Gascany, so he wasn't even English. I say that inverted commas because the complexity of what England looked like in the middle ages. But he came over from Gascany, he went into the household of Fed at the 2nd as a boy, and they got on very, very well, and they seem to have a lot of fun together. Very well. How well is questionable?

We'll get on to that, but yes, they are very good friends. They're very good friends, but that starts to irk the nobility when Edward becomes king. Because when you're king, you don't share power, you hold the power, but you distribute roles fairly. And what Edward did, which was a curious act, was he sort of seemed to share his kingship with Pierce Gaveston. There was a lot of symbolism that he used.

He treated him as if he were his brother, if he were another prince of the realm, which, as we know, it was not the case and that it was a terrible decision and he insisted on protecting him much to his detriment into the rest of his reign, which eventually resulted in Gaveston being murdered. So Gaveston will get from being murdered.

He isn't really a member of the nobility. He's a squire person that in the house. He's certainly not royal, that's for sure. He might not even be English, and we're certainly not going to stand for that. And what we've got is the king who is kind of treating him like a co-king. It's exactly that vibe. And I think that it comes down to you, Edward, not being secure enough and having the confidence. It's like he always has to check it with him.

He has to check with Galston. Is this all right? What do you think to this? What do you think to that? He did have a mental dad, though. His dad was Edward the first, who was quite brutal. Yeah. He was... I don't know why I'm making that link.

Like, is that... I think it's an important link, though. I think it's an important link, because... Because I think his dad was a bully, and there is this very famous scene where an interest in relation to Pierce Gaveston before the death of his father, so in the late 13th century, very early 14th century when Edward was still alive. He was still Edward I, he was still acting. He was very powerful in France. He was very powerful. And everyone was slightly afraid of Edward I, basically, including his son.

The future Edward II, his son, currently Prince Edward, went to the treasurer and said, I want to give my friend Pierce Gavillian. Lein land in France and this goes back to his father. Edward is so angry. His father is so angry. He allegedly

grabbed his son by the hair, ripped out a chunk of his hair and he says, you son of a bitch, how dare you try to give away land when you, you have not earned it.

As in you have not cut your teeth at kingship. You have no idea what it is to conquer. How dare you give away land that I have conquered to somebody who is That's a scary daddy.

Scary dad. So it's no wonder that he's insecure. So Gaveston is then exiled because Edward I was so pissed off. And that's the punishment to his son. Right, your friend's off. He's going back to France. He's not coming back again. But then Edward I dies.

Edward becomes Edward the second. And his first act, which is speaks volumes, before his father's barely cold, is to recall Gaveston from exile. And he gives him the elder of Cornwall. So he elevates him into this incredibly prestigious noble position. And he does all of that when his father has not even been buried. And he's so fresh to the role as king, he has to use his father's seal. So it's kind of like using his father's signature to formalise all of this.

I'll be back with Helen and Isabella after this short break. I know that we're not supposed to speculate. And I know that we'll never know. And we have to caveat it. We'll like, we'll never know for sure. What is going on between these two? I mean, you can form very intense, platonic friendships. I've had several of them in my life.

They'd never given me bits of France, but that can happen. Do you think it was something more? I think it was something more, but I think that it wasn't something more that we can necessarily compare to our modern day experience of what a male romantic relationship could look like. I think to me, and what the record tells us,

is that Edward continually called Gaveston brother, So you see in the written record, in Parliament, he's referring to him as my brother, brother. And I think that he saw him as a brother, but in a very romantic sense. So he was looking to romance traditions of the period, Arthurian legend, where you have in a lesser-known version of Arthurian literature, there's the romance story between Lancelot and a giant called Galaht. And Gala Hout is in love with Lancelot, and eventually they're buried together.

They form what's called a ritual brotherhood. And it's not necessarily that this is something that is sexual, but it's more like a marriage. It's more like a formal bond between men in an incredibly affectionate and loving way. But in this time, I'm not entirely sure that would necessarily mean that they were having penetrative sex. Maybe there were other things that were going on,

but if you think about people who are dictated by religious law, sodomy, as it was called, was considered a major sin. And even though Edward was accused of it later on, we never really know if that's really what he was doing. I think, probably not. I think it was a very affectionate, deeply loving, tender, male relationship that was modelled on not only these kind of literary trends, but some of the more religious ones as well. So there's David and Jonathan who were these two figures in the Bible who lived a very loving male relationship, but it wasn't necessarily a sexual one. And I think that's more what it probably was.

But what it was, even by contemporary standards, was queer. So people... They were in love. Even by their standards, they were in love. That was a queer thing because it was against the norm. And so I think that I would describe it as a queer relationship, that it doesn't mean that it was necessarily including penitative sex.

Yeah. Very well answered there. But whatever the hell was going on, Gaviston fails at one of the first protocols of being a royal favourite, like page one of how to be a good royal favourite. And that's know your fucking place and don't make ripples,

just enjoy the crown and the jewels and the nice dresses and just shut up. And he doesn't do that. And he gets to be, it's such a pain in the ass that they do have a bumped up. don't they? They haven't bumped off because he does things. Like, you can imagine he and Edward having a real laugh

after a few glasses of wine from Gascany in Edward's apartments, taking the piss out of all the nobility in Gautiston, started to make up nicknames for them. So he called them sort of burst belly, as in really fat, or the black dog. He called the Earl of Lancaster a Churl. And this is one of the most wealthy man in the realm and he's calling him a churl, which effectively,

not smart, is calling him a peasant. If you're going to piss off, the Earl of Lancaster, who is eventually going to be the one who does pump you off. Don't call the guy a peasant. And that's exactly what Gaveston did. And he wasn't shy about it. But he also managed to really irk the French because it's Edward and Isabella of France. So this is Edward's young wife who was a child when they were married. At the coronation, as the procession was going on, Gaveston had all the most important jobs.

he was allowed to wear purple, which no one else was allowed to wear unless you were royal. The chronicler described him as dressing like the god Mars, and he was dripping in pearls and all this finery. But the most insulting thing was above the two royal thrones where the coronation took place. There was the arms, the coat of arms of Edward, King of England, but then instead of Isabella of France, there was Gleaskavastersons. Which is like why, that is like the worst PR move ever. and that seems to really anger the French. So stupid. And Isabella's brother, who was there witnessing the coronation,

apparently threatened to have Gaviston killed there and then because he was so angry about it. Isabella was only like 10 when this happened. So, you know, we'll come back to that. That's weird enough on its own. But like, imagine that you've gone to get married to the king and then you're getting married, but then this ridiculous twink, Gaveston,

is like parading round in a dress colour that you should have been wearing. like dressed better than you are and his name is above the throne as well. Yeah. Yeah. Like I don't even think you need to understand 14th century societal norms to get your head round that one. That's rude.

That's really bad. It's very rude and it's rude because Edward is so weak. It's like, why are you allowing this? Like, what are you thinking? It would have been so easy to not have done that. Like, what do you? That could just not have happened. And yet he allowed his,

his friend to behave like that. Exactly. So Isabella gets her own back. She 100% gets her own back. Not against Gaveston, because during the time of when Edward and Gaveston were most active, stay for that what you will. Isabella got on quite well with his Gaveston. He seemed to be quite, they hung out. They seemed to relate very well. And Isabella and Edwards, you know, when she was 16, she had her first child. So they didn't have sex when she was very young. that was more of a courtship. It was a prolonged courtship. Her childhood and her virginity was protected until she was at the point where she was physically able. And about 16, she had Edward III. There was their first born and son. And it was after Gaviston's death,

however, that Edward and Isabella did seem to get closer. They started to spend more time together without Gaveston there. There was a period of time where Edward didn't have somebody who was, you know, his right-hand man, who was very close to him. And he and Isabella had lots of children. There was a period where they were in France together, and apparently they were lying in bed together naked one night when a fire, one of their bed caught fire, which happened in history because people used to have candles around the room.

And Edward allegedly whisked Isabella into his arms, and they ran out naked. It was all very romantic and on the same trip. He was late to a meeting with her father because he was kept up all night. with his wife. And so it seems that they were getting on quite well at this point, then everything started to go wrong. Did she have anything to do with bumping Gaviston awful? Is that just a happy co-inkie-dink? That's just happy. Happy, happy coincidence. I don't think she would have been that happy about it,

though. I think she genuinely quite liked him, but I also think she was so young at this point she didn't really have as much. Her political agency was not quite developed by this point. In fact, it wasn't even really developing. I think that started to come after Gavison's death. After she became a mother, because in the middle ages, as a queen, your major job was to provide an heir. Have the babies. You have the babies. And so you became important when, and taking very seriously in respect and revered when you had a son.

Okay, so we've got a very, very, very young bride. Like, even by the standards of the time, and I know they weren't having sex. But even then, there must have been a few people like, geez, what the fuck's going on here? Anyway, they're married. this weird situation with Gaveston, whatever hell was going on, seems to have been brought to a very abrupt and stabby end. Edward and Isabella seem like, okay, we're flying now. Babies are plenty.

Everyone's getting along. There seems to be some sexy time. What goes wrong? Well, Edward's need for another male partner. Somebody who is going to be at his level, he's going to treat as a confidant who is going to support him, I think, emotionally. I think he looked for male emotional support. He didn't look for it from his wife.

And so he falls into the arms of Hugh Dispenser, the younger. There's two Hugh dispensers in this period, which gets very confusing. There's Hugh Dispenser the Elder and Hugh Dispenser the Younger. Hugh Dispenser the Younger is a part of Edward's court, but he manages to find himself in the role of Chamberlain. So that means that he's constantly with the king in his most intimate moments. He's within his chamber. He's helping him with his sort of day-to-day routine of getting dressed, of washing, of, there's lots of opportunity to get very close to him, to tell him the things that he thinks he probably wants to hear.

And Hugh Dispenser manages to leap up the echelons of the nobility and become an incredibly important figure at court. And it all goes particularly wrong when Dispenser starts to get grabby. he's a very greedy man in a way that makes Pierre Gaviston look like a relative pussy cat No Yeah so Hugh De Spencer does awful things

Like he goes after the widows of men Of noblemen So women who are left with With land and money He goes after them He coerces them effectively Out of their wealth And if they're not coerced

He starts using threats In the record of this He's a complete shit He's up there with King John And And one of the threats he's against one noble woman, the dubious whether it's carried out, that he would break her arms and legs to get. So she would sign off her land.

And there's all of these testimonies from noble women just after 1322. So about five years before Edward is overthrown. Of women talking about how Hugh Dispenser the younger has treated them and the things that he has threatened. And there's one woman in particular who is Edward II's niece. called Elizabeth, and she is imprisoned with her children because she Despenser wants her land. And until she agrees, and the king is behind all of this, he's like, yeah, it's fine, do what you want. And until she agrees to give up her land, he will keep her imprisoned. And this happened, and Edward allowed it to happen.

But the biggest mistake that Dispenser made, Anne Edward, was that he allowed dispenser to go after his wife's land, Isabella, the Queen's land, in Cornwall. And that is the woman that you did not want to rub up the wrong way. No, that is rule number two of how to be a good royal favourite. Number one, don't be two, grab the ingredient, shut up. Number two, respect the queen. 100%. And he did not. I didn't realize he was this much of a shit, to be completely honest. I'm wondering what did Edward see in him. But tell me what his relationship was like with Isabella, who by this point is no longer 10 years old and very, very naive. No, she's not. She is acting with a lot of political agency. She's acting with Queen Leoploom. She's doing the job.

She's on the small council with the king. She's getting involved with the politics. She's getting involved with decision making. And she seems to be doing a brilliant job. There's an amazing episode where she goes to Leeds Castle in Kent and she effectively besieges the castle after the Lady Babelsmere who is at the castle and she's on her own without her husband. Defends it. So it was this amazing episode of two women in the sea. over Leeds Castle. So Isabella does all of that because of the civil war happening in England. She's working for her husband. She's making quite crafty decisions on behalf of Edward. And she's on his side. But then after this, after dispenser starts to grab land and then he

goes after the Queensland, it all goes wrong. Because whilst this is happening in England, in the Middle Ages, in the 14th century in particular, there is this ongoing war with France. And this war, the 100 years war, as it gets later called, hasn't quite started by this point, but the seeds of it are there. And it's all over Gascany, which is Aquitaine land that the English hold in France. And there's always bickering over the border. And Edward falls out with Isabella's brother, Charles IV, the king of France at the time. And Isabella is, basically, it's all taken out on Isabella. all of her French household are exiled, all put in prison,

and she's told that it's her fault because she's French. It becomes all a bit sort of xenophobic and bigoted. And so the French are punished because there's a fallout between Edward II and the King of France. But then Isabella is sent over to France to try and broke her thick. She's trying to kind of repair things. But by this point, dispenser has already been after her land in Cornwall, and she's already pissed off. So when she goes over to France, things are looking okay.

Like she seems to be doing a good job with her brother. She's doing her best. She seems to be still on Edward's side. But then Edward makes the grave mistake of instead of going over himself, just to seal the deal that Isabella has brokered. He sends his son. Oh, right. I thought you could say Hugh.

Right, okay. Or it's not that bad. No, he sends his son. But what he does is he gives Isabella the greatest tool in her box. like she has now got her son in her arsenal. She's got the future heir to the throne in France with her. And also she famously meets again at the French court, the exiled nobleman, who went against Edward II and was imprisoned but managed to escape, already sounding pretty hot, is Roger Mortimer. And there are so many kind of later sort of bonc-busters that are written

about Isabella and Roger Mortimer in this period that make Roger Mortimer out to be this absolute lothario. And I kind of think that he's as close as you would maybe get in the Middle Ages. Any sort of contemporary descriptions of him are like he's tall, he's handsome, he's good with a sword. One of them. I don't know if that's a euphemism.

He's one of them. Okay. And what he does is he encourages Isabella to, or they plot together, and I think he is encouraging her, to overthrow to spend. to a crew and army while she's in France with her son in her possession, go back to England and get rid of dispenser for goods.

Damn, that's balsy, isn't it? It's balsy. That's a hell of a power move. Was it just Hugh that they wanted to get rid of? I mean, might someone have floated the suggestion of like, oh, possibly get rid of Edward, while we're at it, or we just focused on Hugh Dispenser at this point? Well, the thing is it's sort of hedging your bets.

I think it was always a case that, okay, well, you might have to follow through and get rid of the king as well. well, because if we don't, he's probably then going to knock us off and that's not going to look good. But I think at this point, they don't say that in so many words because it's treason. So that if they're getting rid of Hugh, that's not treason. That's something, you know, in the same way that the nobility, when they got rid of Gaviston, Ed would have to forgive them for it because they masked it that Gaveston was the treasonousinous one by overstepping his right. And the same way as Hugh Spencer.

But if they start saying we're going to knock off the king, then that is 100% treasoned head gets cut off immediately. Yeah, you can't lead with that, can you? You can't lead with it? That would be a foolish error. Right. It might have been sort of like a bit of a whisper and a murmur and a nudgewoods wink wink to each other, but it certainly wasn't something that they openly intended.

So at this point, Edward and Dispenser are getting a bit nervous. They know something's going on. They start finding out that Isabella's met up with Mortimer. And there starts to be rumours about Isabella and Mortimer's relationship. And even though there is no thing explicitly. to say that they were having sex. Edward does make a reference that they were. So he says in a letter that she is in a relationship with Mortor,

she's familiar with Mortimer out and inside the bedchamber so that they are effectively in cahoots sort of together outside in the political sphere, but they're also sleeping together. But Isabella starts writing back to Edward and not writing back to the Pope as well. His starting to get involved. He's all worried that this war marriage is going to collapse. And she's saying, I will not go back to England whilst dispenser is there.

And what's interesting about this is it's always been framed by historians in the past that she's being deliberately obtuse, that she is being sort of sassy, that she doesn't, she's determined, she knows, she's this she wolf. She's described as a she wolf. But what she says is that she's afraid for her life. And that has always been taking us to being her thing a bit hysterical. as so many references to women in history are. You know, women at a woman's destiny, she's being hysterical.

But I don't think Isabella was being hysterical. I think she was telling the truth. I think she was afraid for her life. I think she was deeply afraid of what he would do to her. And so this in some ways, I think, was a normally very compliant queen, a very compliant wife, somebody who was wanted to be on the side of her husband, but was respected for who she was,

I think she felt like this was probably her only option. And I think she was genuinely intimidated by Eda Spencer. And as we know, as women, what it's like to be around a man, a dangerous and aggressive man, and how terrifying that is. And he sounds like he's got form. He's been violent before, hasn't he? Yeah, exactly. And what would stop her?

Because her husband's not going to protect her because he's already proved that he's not going to do that. So I think she's absolutely right. in the sense that she knows where she's safe, but she also knows she can't stay there forever because her brother's not going to support her forever to stay there. So she does. She manages to accrue an army full of mercenaries.

She broke as a marriage agreement between her son and the future, Queen of England, Philippa of Haynott, and she uses the count of Haynott's men, and she forges an army that she leads. This is where the She-Wolf title has come in, this very misogynistic lens to look at this woman who's stepping outside of her, social expectation, her rank and her femininity. But she invades England and she goes straight after,

guess who? Hugh Dispenser. You'd love doing it as well, wouldn't you? Just like writing the shit. Here we go. What does she do? She's great. So she marches on England. She finds out pretty quickly she's got a lot of support because he is a shit from a lot of the members of the nobility, including Edward's half, much younger half brothers. They support her on her quest to get rid of dispenser, not the king, importantly, but dispenser. No, no, no, just that person that's near him a lot. Exactly, just that guy.

There's a trope in particularly in medieval, actually probably later in 16th, 17th, even 18th century history, where it's like, we can't target the king, we're just going to target the people around the king, because they're the ones that are in the wrong. And that's kind of what it starts like. And so they go after dispensers, they go to London where he's really unpopular.

it becomes a bit of a bloodbath, it becomes a manhunt. Anyone associated with dispenser is treated appallingly. They behead dispensers. I think it's his secretary or his treasurer or somebody. It's a bit far that, lads. You've gone too far then. Yeah, they go a bit far. But Londoners love it in the Middle Ages. They just love a chance to get really nasty.

They're just like, oh, yeah, let's do some beheading. They start, like, dragging people out of houses, getting their heads locked off, and they send them to Isabella as a gift. And it's like, it all gets a bit gnarly. And then Isabella chases Edward and Dispenser, so she follows them all the way to Bristol, and they jump in a boat together, and that's trying to find where to go. And you can see where it's going by this point. Eventually, she has the elder, Hugh Dispenser's father captured,

and he is executed rather brutally. But then finally, the Edward II and Hugh Spencer are found in Wales, and they'd brought back to England to Hereford, and Hugh de Spencer is imprisoned and he's given a sort of mock trial like a show trial and that's where in the record all of the testimony comes out against everything that he had done and of course people are going to start being a bit like

it's a little bit like this recent salt pile on everyone's like oh yeah and and also and and and they did and they did this and he did this so you're going to you know you have to take these things obviously with a slight pinch of salt because guess what even in the 14th century people have to pile on. But it does shed light on the fact that he treated women with extraordinary brutality. He is a complete shit.

He's a complete shit. That's pretty clear, isn't it? Like, no one's going to be too upset, apart from the king. Yeah, the king is sort of put into custody, and he's taken off to Kennelworth Castle, and he just waits there to, he's in Handerhouse arrest, effectively.

And his son sort takes over as a king in waiting. He's prince, but he's leading parliament. And Isabella is keen to get Dispenser down to London because she wants his execution to be like big centre stage. This is like the Nebworth of executions. And Dispenser knows that. And so he starts trying to starve himself to death. And Isabella's like, no, no, no, no.

Not on my watch. So she doesn't force feed him. But what she does do is just accepts that she's going to have him executed at Hereford. So Hugh Dispenser has given the most brutal execution in medieval history. Oh dear. They do. There's actually a depiction. A chronicler took it upon themselves to have his words illuminated and there is an image of what goes on. So they have dispenser as far as we can tell strung up on a very tall ladder. So you have to climb up another ladder next to him to do your work. And he's hanged, he's drawn and then he's quartered. All of his entrails are taken out and he's up on this ladder. He's sort of strung up. And they wake and wear a crown of thorns. He's complete naked. And he's watching all these entrails come out. And then they take. take off his penis and they throw them all onto a furnace below and then his penis is severed and his balls and they were also thrown onto the furnace below before he's beheaded and quartered.

So they weren't fucking about with that, were they? No, they liked to make sure he was dead. And then some. Wow. Yeah. Okay. So Isabella knew how to make a statement. Didn't she? That's not a woman you want to piss off, is it? Wow. No, no. And she was then sort of, I'll have my lands back and some more. Thank you very much.

Was she there at the execution? Just like with a great big foam finger. Just like, way. Like in gladiators. Yeah. That's actually a good question. I'm not sure. I think she was there.

Yeah. You would be, wouldn't you? You want to make sure. Yeah. Just make sure there's no last minute escape attempt. No. I'll be back with Helen and Isabella after this short break. What about Edward?

He's in jail. His lover is now in pieces. Yeah. And he's not the king anymore. They took a vote. Who thinks Edward should be allowed to be king? No one. Right.

Okay, you're out. What happens to him? I do know the story of what's supposed to have happened. Oh yes. So this is something we can definitely talk about. So he relinquishes his crown. So I think Isabella and Mortimer. He's just useless, isn't he?

He's just caves in it absolutely everything. So this is what we're told. We don't know how much argument, how much threat, what he's being told as to why he relinquishes it. But he does agree that his son will take over from him as king. Because Isabella and Mortimer understand that if they then allow Edward to carry on being king, it's just going to be like, well, then Mortimer gets knocked off. Oh, and then someone knocks off the next friend.

And it's sort of like, it's just going to be like whack-a-mole for Edward's favourites. So they know that that's not going to work. What they can't do is a king has never been murdered in this way before in Plantagenet history. And so they make it the big deal that Edward, the same. third, New Edward III is now King of England and his father has agreed to relinquish his crown to his son. And he's gone off, he's under house arrest in Kenilworth, there's an escape attempt made and they go, okay, well this isn't going to work, so we're going to move you. And they move into Barclay Castle, which is in Gloucestershire, nice castle. We filmed

there for history here and it was a bizarre morning. We went into the room where Edward was allegedly kept and there was like an actual skull on the table there. We were like, wow, This is, you can tell we're not in English heritage anymore. Got really gone all out. It was like you could tell it was privately owned, that's for sure. And they had a small cell effectively, but it was believable that it was possibly where the king was kept. It's quite a small room because it is in the keep. So it's not like it's on the walls of the castle.

He would be easily surveyed and monitored. Allegedly, that night, all we know is, to the record, it said the king died in September. on, I think it's the 27th of September, from a fatal happening, aka an accident. Yes, look at that. Something fatal happened. We'll say no more about this.

Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, nobody questions it. It's like, okay, but he is killed. So the rumor, which Berkeley Castle like to perpetuate

because they actually go into the room and there is a poker on the wall. And it's like, oh, okay, right. Be paved. Exactly. The rumor, is that he was killed by anal penetration with a red hot poker.

So stoked in the fire. What do you think about that, Helen? What do you reckon? I think it's rubbish. I think it's a very efficient way to kill somebody. It's rubbish. It's complete rubbish. So this comes from, the original source for this, is the Brutts Chronicle.

And what the Brut Chronicle does is this long sort of history of Britain. And it starts much, much early. It starts sort of with the Romans and a lot of mythology and Arthur. and it carries all the way through. And what the Brook Chroniker is looking for is a way of showing how Edward was killed without a mark on his body, but that is a way that his readers are going to be amused, let's say.

Okay. And he does this by, it's mimetic. So he's literary, it's a mimetic literary trend. So he's borrowing episodes from mythology and other moments of the past. that the same death occurs. And he's taking that from other material, other reading material. So the most famous one, which is probably a direct reference,

is the death of Edmund Ironside, who, luck would have it, was killed whilst going to the toilet because a statue was holding a bow and arrow and it accidentally let go of the bow and arrow, and the arrow went up, Edmund Ironson's backside. And that was apparently a... Oh, that's a perennial problem, that one. How many times is that?

happened. Yeah, we have to watch, we have to watch those statues. And what is likely, and there's all, there are other references to this type of death by anal penetration. And it's likely that the Brooke chronicler chose that as a way of killing off Edward II in his chronicle. There has been an assumption that it has been in reference to him as a so he was having sex with men. And so he has homophobic, It's a homophobic slur. But actually, the only reference to that occurs much later with Christopher Marlowe in his play of Edlitt II,

where there is much more made of the sexuality of Edlidler the 2nd. So it's not the same thing. The poker was not necessarily a case of referencing him being having sex with men and it being something that's phenomenally homophobic. But it was actually more to do with what is my reader going to find amusing and how can I kill off this king? What I think probably happened was that Roger Mortimer

knew that there were increasing attempts to rescue Edward. He had a problem on his hands. Edward was rescued. Mortimer was dead. Everything was overthrown. He was getting incredibly power hungry, as was Isabella. And with being power hungry,

you also get hyper-anxious, you get more dangerous. And I think Mortimer gave the order that Edward was killed and I think he was probably smothered in his sleep. That's what I think happened. Much more efficient. Much more efficient. Much more efficient.

Yeah. Also, probably what happened is the princesses in the tower while we're at it. Moving on swiftly. Gaviston is in pieces. He's long gone. Dispenser's gone. Edward, smothered, not pokered to death. What happens to Isabella and Mortimer just to round off this rather sorry tale?

I know. It's a good, so there's a sort of motif that I use in my book for this particular period of the 14th century. And it's the Wheel of Fortune. And the Wheel of Fortune was a very frequent, popular motif that was used in manuscript illumination and literary tradition as well. And it's this idea that there is the goddess Fortuna who spins the wheel in relation to your life and your lived experience. And sometimes you're at the top of the wheel and then she'll spin it and you'll go crash at the bottom. And that is very much what you see. with the major players in this part of the 14th century. So Isabella and Mortimer by the death of Edgwick II are up there. They are having a great time. They're having a pretty open relationship. They're spending a lot of time in Mortimer's newly acquired lands, particularly around the Welsh border. They are living a life of power and decadence.

And they love, they love to dress up. Isabella is big into Arthurianisms and literature. And there is a fascinating example of them dressing up as Arthur and Guinevere or Lance Lot and Guinevere and kind of is a bit of cosplay going on and they just, I think, had a great time. But then they make the ultimate fatal error. They step too far as a lot of people in positions of power when they get power hungry do. And what they did is they decided to seek out those who weren't loyal. So they started to get paranoid.

And paranoid people are dangerous people. So they start to seek out people who might be against their regime, against their regency. Because Edward is young, but he's not that young. He's able to rule, but he's not allowed to. His mother and Mortimer effectively doing it for him. And people are, so there's whispers that people are getting irritated with this. So they start to go, well, who's against us? And so they start to try and trap people.

And one of the people that they do effectively trap is Edmund Earl of Kent. who is the half-brother, the much younger half-brother of the now deceased at the second. And what they do is they spin a yarn that, through multiple sources, Edgwood the Second is still alive. And he's hiding out and he needs help to escape. He's still alive, but he's being kept elsewhere. I think it's at Barclay Castle. And he is there, but he needs to escape.

And so there starts to be this sort of paper trail between the Archbishop of York and then there's Edmund Earl of Kent and there's people that they're accruing goods for Edward II to escape from his imprisonment and Edward Earl of Kent Edmund Earl of Kent goes to

the castle to see if he can see his brother and he does he's shown a man eating so he sees his brother eating some food he sees somebody who he thinks is his brother he doesn't talk to him he sees him but he doesn't actually engage with him bit dodgy but what he fades

he does is he writes a letter to who he thinks is his brother and says, let me help rescue you and restore you to your throne. And what he's done is given Isabella and Mortimer what they need. He's given them evidence that he's a traitor. And so what they do is they in writing. Yeah, because he's put it in writing. And what they do is they arrest him. They've tricked him. They arrest him. He's imprisoned. And then he's executed. But what's so appalling is that it's an innocent guy, and he's also royal. This is one of the sons of Edward I. And he's got Roger Mortimer, like a comparative layman, who's ordering his execution. It's like, no, no, no, no. And they can't find anyone who's willing to do the deed. They're not executing a prince. No way. I fancy my place in

heaven, thank you very much. And what they do is they find a prisoner, so somebody who, he was basically just a peasant that was in prison for a petty crime. And they say you get your freedom if you to do the job. And so this poor prince, Edmund Earl of Kent, is out waiting for six hours for somebody to be found to do the, who will agree to do it. And then eventually this sort of, this surf effectively comes out from the gutter. The work experience kid comes along. Yeah. And, and does, and does the job. And it's just so unbelievably cruel. And merciless. And Edmund is begging, he's begging the whole time, please don't do this. Please, please forgive me. I've stopped. Like, and they're just like, no. And, and,

And this, in turn, the wheel spins. And Roger Mortimer and Isabella find themselves crushed beneath it. Because Edward III, the king who's just been sat back, trapped in his kingship by his mother and her lover, is like, you stepped over the line. And he creates this coup. He's gone too far. He's gone too far. And he creates a coup with his best mates. Parliament's being held at Nottingham in Nottingham Castle.

and they come up through the underbelly of Nottingham Castle because I think even to this day people have said there's still some tunnels that you can go through the rock because the castle's quite high up and they go through there and then Edward lets these men into the castle and they go up to where Isabella and Mortimer having a private meeting and they burst in, drag Mortimer out

and he's given a quick show trial and then he is hung naked as a thief somebody who tried to steal the response of kingship. And then you move into the age of Edward III. He does a much better job at keeping everyone on side. Wow. That's, I mean, I can see why you're interested in this particular period of history. That was a lot of drama. So much drama. I mean, it writes itself. Such awkward family Christmases going on there. Did Isabella live a long life? So she was sent off to an Abby she sent off to Berkhamstead and she did live. Yeah, of course she was. Yeah, of course she was.

Like, you can't get in trouble. Off you go. So yeah, she did live. Into a nunnery. She left a, she left, she did live a longer life and she wasn't allowed any sort of political, you know, she wasn't allowed any reins of power. She went too far. She went too far. But her son did name his first daughter after her. So, you know, maybe they were still friends to an extent. On speaking terms. Nelsia, yeah, exactly. Helen, you have been wonderful to talk to. I know. would be. And if people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you? They can find me on Instagram. If you search Helen Carr, author, I'm there. I always forget my personal handle, which is terrible, isn't it, for my, for my publicity. My publisher's there going,

God's sake. You can also find all of my books in all good bookshops online. It's every search Septu Isle and that will come up. I'm also on Substack. So people can find me and follow me on Substack and I'm trying to do lots of frequent posts about the 14th century, about the Middle Ages and also a few videos of recommendations and things. And that's about as far as I go on relation to online content at the Roe Rib. Oh, what's the title of your history hit documentary? It's called Edward II England's Worst Monarch. Amazing.

Thank you so much. You have been an absolute treat. Thank you. Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Helen for joining me. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like review and follow along whatever it is, you get your podcasts. Coming up, we've got an episode on The Truth about Roll Dahl. and we'll be asking, did Henry VIII really have an affair with Anne Boleyn's sister?

Hmm, controversial subject. But if you would like us to explore a subject, or if you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us at betwixt at history hit.com. This podcast was edited by Tim Arstall and produced by Stuart Beckworth. The Senior Producer was Freddie Chick. Join me again, Betwixt the Sheets, The History of Sex Scandal and Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.