Gone Medieval - The Death of Edward II

Episode Date: January 7, 2023

January 2023 is Matt Lewis’s Mystery Month on Gone Medieval and for his first foray into the unsolved enigmas of the Middle Ages, Matt looks into the death of King Edward II. Most historians agree that Edward died at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire on 21 September 1327, but some think he may have died much later. His death though was "suspiciously timely”. Was he murdered with a red-hot poker as the propaganda against him soon afterwards suggested? What proof exists to suggest that he may have died in another way, and at another time? Matt unpicks the evidence with Edward II’s biographer Kathryn Warner.This episode was edited and produced by Rob Weinberg.If you’re enjoying this podcast and are looking for more fascinating Medieval content then subscribe to our Medieval Monday newsletter here >If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download, go to Android > or Apple store > Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval. I'm Matt Lewis. It's Mystery Month on Gone Medieval and this is the one I really had to cover, partly because it's fascinating and partly because I knew just the right person to talk to about it. Edward II has a reputation and we'll get to that, I'm sure, but the mystery that we're going to take a good look at surrounds his death. Specifically, did he really die when official sorts of

say that he did. And what evidence is there to suggest that maybe he didn't? I'm hoping to get as close to the truth as we can with Edward's biographer Catherine Warner. Welcome to Gone Medieval, Catherine. Hi, Matt. Thanks so much for inviting me. It's really great to be here and to have the chance to talk to you. It's a pleasure. I'm really excited to get into this with you as well. So I guess to start off with, though, most people have a view of Edward II as a failure as a king. Do you think that's fair? I think it is fair. Absolutely. Edward II. was the first king of England who was forced to abdicate his throne in 1327. And of course, that would never have happened if he hadn't been a disastrous ruler, who lost the support of most of the

English political class, plus his own wife, Queen Isabella, and their eldest child, the future Edward III. Edward II is also famous for losing the Battle of Banachburn in 1314, in Scotland, which we could say was one of England's most humiliating military defeats. And throughout his reign, Edward lurch from one crisis to another, and they were almost entirely of his own making, it has to be said. So he was threatened with deposition on a number of occasions, at least three times before it happened. He managed to bring his kingdom to the brink of civil war,

also on a number of occasions, first time within a year of succeeding his father on the throne in 1307. So, yes, it's definitely fair for people to think of Edward II as a failure as a king. If we were looking for a little bit of balance, Does he have any good points as a king or as a person? Could we be a little bit more sympathetic towards him? I think probably just about everyone deserves a fair hearing. And I don't think we should simply write off Edward II

as though he's just simply a worthless individual and a failure and absolutely nothing else. So often online, especially I see people dismissing him as like this caricature of utter uselessness enduring at him. But I think we can give Edward a fair hearing and one that's perhaps more sympathetic. to him than he usually gets without having to skate over his many failings and his failures as a king. And to try to understand why he did the things he did or why he didn't do the things he should have done. How did he fail so badly? How did he reach this point where so many people wanted to replace him with his teenage son? And I think some people often misunderstand this,

unfortunately. Giving Edward a fair hearing and treating him with a certain amount of sympathy isn't at all the same thing as claiming that he was a good king. But it's not like we only have two choices, either claiming that he was completely useless at everything, and that's it, end of story, or claiming that he was some kind of perfect saint who's been totally misunderstood. I've never said that Edward is a good king. Just I think that trying to understand him better in giving him a sympathetic hearing doesn't necessarily mean justifying everything he ever did and making out that he was something he wasn't. It really doesn't. To try to understand a person better doesn't mean that you're condoning or excusing all the mistakes that he made. To be honest, it's a bit

hard to think of many good points as a king for Edward II. The fact that he fathered Edward I third, who is a much better king in all respects, is definitely one. And one thing that I do think is very praiseworthy in Edward II is his interest in education. He was the first of only two people in history who founded colleges at both Oxford and Cambridge. The other one was Henry the sixth in the 15th century. And he was also involved in the foundation of a university in Dublin in 1312, although it didn't last very long. Edward II exasperated his contemporaries because they pretty much all realised that he wasn't stupid or incompetent. He basically just couldn't be bothered. He wasn't interested. He hated holding parliament. He more or less hated everything to do with ruling.

So the author of the Vita Eduardi Secundi, the life of Edward II, a very useful source that we have for Edward's reign, was a royal clerk who knew Edward very well, and he said in 1313 that Edward raised everyone's hopes as Prince of Wales an heir to the throne, but dashed them when he became king. And the author wrote at the same time that, quote, Our king has now reigned six full years, but until now has achieved nothing praiseworthy or memorable, except that he had fathered a son and heir to the throne. Whenever Edward II's feelings were involved, which was pretty much only when his male favourites were threatened, he was capable of swift and decisive action and proved himself to be highly competent, but most of the time he just couldn't be bothered.

And we could say this was laziness and lack of interest rather than actual incompetence. But he'd been raised as the heir to the throne and all his life he knew that he would have to succeed his father as king, but he just didn't do it. He stepped out of his responsibilities. And this caused a great deal of misery and chaos in his kingdom for almost 20. years. So as a person, we can say some nicer things about him. He was capable of enormous kindness and generosity and he was incredibly friendly and would talk to anyone. And his household accounts are full of examples of him giving gifts of cash to his, let's call them his low-born subjects, who he encountered while he was travelling around the kingdom and who he stopped to chat with. One of his

friends was a fisherman on the River Thames called Colheron and he also knew two brothers called Alan and Martin Palmer very well, who were shipbuilders near the Tower of London. When Edward heard that Alan's wife, Cecile, was ill in 1324, he sent her money for medicines, but sadly she died shortly afterwards, and Edward paid for her funeral. So these are recorded in his household accounts, and that's just one example of literally hundreds of similar ones that I could share. He often comes across to me as a caring person who had a real gift of being able to get on extremely well with his common subjects, but he also totally alienated and angered the more important people of the realm.

So for many reasons, I think Edward makes a lot more sense to us in the 21st century than he did to his contemporaries, who was the king with a common touch. But 14th century chroniclers were baffled and even disgusted by his fondness for his common subjects. In the autumn of 1315, Edward went on holiday in the fence for a month, and a chronicle called a Flores Historiarium, written at Westminster Abbey, says that he took a great company of common people with him, which the author meant disapprovingly. Edward also personally took part in what his detractors

disparagingly called his rustic pursuit, such as digging ditches, satching roofs, metalwork, woodwork, driving carts, rowing boats, swimming for pleasure. Numerous 14th century chroniclers talk about this, and I've confirmed it from Edward's household account. counts. So Edward the second was a fit and enormously physically powerful man. Numerous contemporary chroniclers, in fact, probably just about all of them, commented on his enormous strength. Even a Scottish poet said that he was the strongest man you could find in any country. And a Scottish writer was the last person on earth who was going to want to flatter the King of

England. So his massive strength and his fondness for digging and rowing was so on, were widely known in England and elsewhere. And the problem was, though, that distracted him from ruling what he was actually meant to be doing. So a great guy to have around the farm, but not so good on the throne. Yes. And so Edward gets deposed, as you mentioned earlier, in 1327 and replaced with his teenage son, Edward III. Briefly, what leads up to that deposition? What causes Edward to finally, after 20 years, be kicked off the throne? Well, Edward made a very bad mistake. He alienated his wife,

Isabella of France, the daughter of Philip, the fourth of France, who's known to history as the Iron King. Edward and Isabella's marriage is often misunderstood and assumed we've been an unhappy disaster from start to finish, but actually they had a very good and very close relationship for many years, until 1322 when Edward fell under the power of a nobleman called Hugh Despenter the younger, who was determined to sideline Isabella as much as possible, and persuaded Edward that his loyal wife was in fact his enemy. While she was in France with their son and heir, Edward of Windsor, later Edward III, in 1325, Isabella offered her husband an ultimatum that he should send Hugh to Spencer away from him, or she and their son wouldn't return to England. Edward II

refused, and therefore Isabella stayed in her homeland and formed an alliance with the group of English barons, who had rebelled against Edward in the early 1320s and fled to the continent. They were led by Roger Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore, the future first Earl of March, who would become very powerful over the next few years as the Queen's ally in favour. Edward the second was incapable of learning from his own mistakes and kept repeating them. So he would become infatuated with a man, give him far too much influence and treat him as his co-ruler, in effect. The first one was Pierce Gaveston, who was executed by some barons in 1312. Then a few years later, Edward did the same thing with Hugh Dispenser. Both Gaveston and Spencer were forced into exile by

Edward's enemies, but then afterwards he'd bring them back and just carry on as before. So Gavison was exiled twice by Edward's barons, then killed after Edward kept bringing him back. In 1321, the Spencer was exiled and then came back, and in 1326 he was finally captured and executed. But people surely realise that sometime soon, Edward would meet someone else and the whole wretched cycle would begin all over again. So it may be, we don't know, that Queen Isabella and her allies' original aim in 1326 was just to get rid of the hated Hugh Spencer. But events snowballed and it soon became apparent that Edward II had very little support among the English political class and that it really wasn't possible for him to continue reigning.

So at Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire in January 1327, Edward abdicated his throne to his 14-year-old son, Edward III. So January 1327 he abdicates the throne. So what we think we know after that is that on the 21st of September 1327, he's reported to have died. He is buried at Gloucester Cathedral on the 20th of December that same year. So the same year that he abdicates, he is reportedly dead and buried by the end of that year. Can you talk us through supposedly what happened and precisely what was reported? So after Edward's forced education, he was held in captivity at Kenilworth Castle for a while, but there was a plot by some of his supporters, of whom, still, to be fair, had quite a few,

and they attacked the castle and tried to free him. So in early April 1327, Edward was moved to Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire and was put in the custody of Thomas Lord Berkeley, a son-in-law of Roger Mortimer and Barclay's brother-in-law, Sir John Maltravers. His location was kept secret, but within a couple of months his followers found out where he was and attacked Barclay Castle, probably in general. July 1327, and rather remarkably, they actually temporarily freed Edward from custody, though we can assume that he was recaptured very soon afterwards.

A letter of Lord Barclay dated the 27th of July 1327 still exists, and it names the men responsible for attacking the castle and free Edward, and also states that there was another plot in Buckinghamshire and neighbouring counties to free Edward, and there is also some trace of this plot in the Chancery rolls. And then in September 1327, yet another plot to free Edward was uncovered. This one in Wales, led by Sir Riesap Griffith and Sir Griffith Lloyd. When it was discovered, some of the conspirators were imprisoned in Carnarvon Castle, which was Edward II's birthplace, ironically enough,

and the rest of them fled to Scotland, where the Earl of Mar was a close friend of Edward and was involved in these plots to free him. And the discovery of this latest plot seems to have convinced certain people let Edward the second had to die, because if he was freed and his supporters tried to restore him to the throne, now occupied by his son, it was going to cause civil war. And if Edward ever got the chance, Queen Isabella would surely find herself imprisoned, Roger Mortimer and others would be horribly executed. So we know from a court case of 1331 that a man named William Shelford, the Deputy Justice of Wales, sent a letter to his boss in 1327. This happened to be Roger Mortimer.

telling him about this latest Welsh plot. And that as a result of this, Mortimer sent a man called William Oakley, who was a man of arms who had previously been in the household of Mortimer's wife, sent him to Berkeley Castle to Lord Barclay and John Maltrevers, telling them to find a solution to the problem of the former king. And a few days later came the news that Edwin II was dead. Fascinating. So we've got this letter saying, Find a solution and then a report that he's dead.

Yeah. Is there anything odd about the death, the displaying of the body at Gloucester or the burial that might add to the suspicion that perhaps it wasn't actually dead, that reporting him dead was simply a solution to the problem? One big problem we have is that nobody involved in Edward II's death ever spoke publicly about it. And none of them ever explained how Edward II was supposedly killed in 1327. So when a parliament held three years later after he'd finally taken over control of his own kingdom, Edward III just said that his father had been killed and gave no more information. So chroniclers of the age, and then later on in the 14th century, filled the gap with their own theories and ideas and rumours that they'd heard of what might have happened.

So some of them just said that Edward II died at Berkeley Castle and nothing else. Some said he died of natural causes or that he died of grief. Others said that it was poison or a fall or suffocation or strangulation or they said that Edward was murdered without ever saying how. So the only chronicler who was anywhere near Berkeley Castle in 1327 was a royal clerk called Adam Murrimus, who was in Exeter at the time and he wrote that Edward was suffocated. The Scala Chronica, which was written by a knight called Thomas Gray,

whose father knew Edward I second very well, said that Edward died at Berkeley. by what manner is not known, but God knows it. And the Bridlington chronicer in the 1340 said that he didn't believe the stories he was hearing, which we can probably assume is a reference to the notorious red-hot poker story. So there's no reason whatsoever to think that the red-hot poker story is true. It's only famous and widely known and repeated because it's so luridly disgusting, and not because it's even remotely likely to be true.

Only a handful of 14th century chroniclers even recount that story, and there's no reason at all to think that any of them had special knowledge or insight that all the other chroniclers didn't have. But unfortunately, the chroniclers that do mention the Red Hot Poker are the Brute, the Polychronicon and Geoffrey LeBaker, and they were all very widely read and copied into many manuscripts, and were therefore extremely influential. So towards the end of the 14th century, other chroniclers started just repeating this story,

and over time it became the accepted version, as it were. And in the early 1590s, Christopher Marlowe included the poker story in his play about Edward II, which also went a very long way to popularising it. Many or perhaps even most people today assume that the story must be true because they learned it at school and they've never heard anything else. But for many decades, it was just one story of Edward II's death circulating among many other different stories. So what officially happened in 1327? The young King Edward III, who was still not even 15 in September 1327, was in Lincoln holding Parliament.

And he sent a letter on the 24th of September 1327 to his cousin John Duboon, the Earl of Hereford, which says that news came to us during the night that our dearest Lord and Father has been commanded to God. and we're lucky that this letter still exists in the National Archives. And records of Berkeley Castle show that the man who brought the news of his father's death to the young king was Sir Thomas Gurney, a knight of Somerset. So Edward III didn't tell his cousin Hereford how his father had died or when, but virtually all contemporary chroniclers give the date as the 21st of September, and in later years that was also the date when Edward III and his mother, Queen Isabella,

kept the anniversary of Edward II's death. So Thomas Gurney must have ridden very fast to travel the 160 miles from Berkeley to Lincoln to tell Edward III during the night of the 23rd to the 24th of September. And as Edward III had just closed Parliament, there were a lot of very important people in Lincoln and news of the former King's death spread to them and thereafter spread very fast throughout the country. So Edward II was still only 43 in September 1327 and he'd always been a very strong. strong, fit and healthy man. So people must really have wondered what was going on, though at this stage there's no real evidence that people discussed his sudden death and whether he might have

been murdered or not. Presumably people did, but it didn't find its way onto written record just yet. And I think it's probably significant that Edward III began circulating news of his father's death immediately, and he didn't send anyone to Barclay Castle to confirm it. He took Thomas Gurney's news a certain truth. And three years later in October 3rd, 1330, Edward III overthrew his mother, Queen Isabella, began ruling his own kingdom, and held a parliament that began in November 1330. And for the first time, he said that his father had been murdered, but he never said how. And Thomas Lord Barclay, Edward II's custodian of 1327, appeared before this parliament

and said something really odd. He claimed that he hadn't known of Edward II's death until he arrived at the present Parliament, three years later, which is really weird because it must have been Lord Barclay, who sent Thomas Gurney to Edward III, announcing his father's death at Berkeley's own castle. John Maltravers, Edward II's other custodian of 1327, was never accused of any complicity in Edward's murder. William Oakley, the man-at-arms who Roger Mortimer sent to Barclay Castle with news of the Welsh plot to free Edward II, and Thomas Gurney, the knight who brought news of the death, were both condemned to execution. for Edward II's murder, but they both fled abroad. William Oakley was never heard of again.

Thomas Gurney was captured in Italy in the early 1330s, but rather mysteriously, died at sea while being brought back to England. Roger Mortimer was sentenced to death on 14 charges and executed. One of these 14 was ordering Edward II's murder, but Queen Isabella was never accused of any complicity in her husband's death. And I'd just like to talk here about what happened. happened to Edward's body after death. So it was kept at Berkeley Castle until the 21st of October, 1327, so that's exactly a month after he died. And it appears from Berkeley Castle records

that a local wise woman embalmed the former king's body and that Lord Berkeley sent Edward's heart to Queen Isabella in a silver vessel. And I know that sounds really a macabre, but separate heart burial was entirely normal in royal burials at the time, so it's really not unusual. And while the body was still at Berkeley Castle, it was watched over by a man called William Bocquer, who apparently was French because Bocquer is a town near Avignon. So this is also very curious because Bockeir seems to have been an adherent of Edward II's executed favourite, Hugh Dispenter. And earlier in 1327, he'd been associated with some of the men who were trying to free Edward II from Kenilworth and Barclay Castle. so why he of all people was chosen for this task is unclear, but we know that he was because payment for this

appears in a record that still exists in the exchequer. And according to Adam Moorimuth, the chronicler who was in Exeter in September 1327, a number of knights, abbots and burgesses from Bristol and Gloucester saw red with the second's body at Barclay Castle, but only superficially, whatever that means. And a lot of ink has been spilt on the meaning of that word. Murrimuth also doesn't say why the men went to see Edward's body or when, or whether they went separately or in one group.

And there's no more information anywhere else about it, even in Berkeley Castle Records. So the whole thing raises more questions than it answers, unfortunately. Certainly there were plenty of men in Bristol and Gloucester who'd seen Edward the second in life and would have been able to recognise him. But what does it mean when they saw the body superficially? So on the 21st of October 1327, Edward's body was taken to Gloucester about 20 miles away and he was buried in St Peter's Abbey which later became Gloucester Cathedral on the 20th of December three months after his death. A long delay between a royal death and burial was normal in the 14th century. For example Edward's widow Isabella died on the 22nd of August 1348 and was buried on the 27th of November.

So that's not suspicious. But what is that? a little odd is that while Edward's coffin was lying in state in Gloucester for two months, a life-sized death effigy was placed on top of the coffin instead of his embalmed body. And it seems to be the first time that this was done in Western Europe, in a royal burial. And Edward's widow Isabella and Edward III attended his funeral, and so did numerous other members of the royal family and the nobility and other important people. Unfortunately, very little is known about the funeral, except that no expectations. was spared. And Edward II was given a magnificent ceremony that befitted his royal birth and the fact

that he was the father of the present king, even though he died in disgrace, essentially. And his half-brother the Earl of Kent later became convinced that Edward was still alive, which at the very least, I think, would suggest that Kent hadn't seen Edward's face before he was buried, and perhaps that Kent didn't think that anybody else had seen him either. That's all very suitably for us mysterious. Lots of room to doubt the official story maybe that the story that he was murdered was just to stop plots in his favour

and that actually something else may have happened to him that his body wasn't really seen by all of these people. It could have been anybody there wrapped up and embalmed. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and on my podcast, not just the Tudors, from History Hit, we talk about everything. From what Queen Consort Camilla could learn from the Renaissance? Really, when we begin to look at Queen Consorts, we notice that there's a lot of ways that women could have authority through their relationship with the King.

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Subscribe now to Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Can you talk us through the evidence that suggests that Edward might have survived beyond 1327? Because there is quite a surprising amount of evidence to support this, isn't there? There is actually, yeah. As I've just mentioned about Edward II's half-brother, the Earl of Kent. This was Edmund of Woodstock. He was the youngest son of Edward I, the first, from his second marriage, and was 17 years younger than Edward II.

And he was also Richard II's grandfather, incidentally, via his daughter, Joan of Kent. So we know from the chancery roles that Edmund attended Edward II's funeral. But in late 1328, possibly 1329, Edmund became convinced that Edward II was still alive and was being held in captivity at Corfe Cthel in Dorset. And Edmund started to put plans in motion to free Edward and even sent him a letter written by his wife, Margaret Wake. This was recorded in the Brute Chronicle in Middle English, though presumably Edward wrote it in French in the original. Edmund Earl of Kent was arrested and was put on trial before Parliament, charged with treason against his nephew, Edward III, in March 1330,

and confessed to the plot to free his supposedly dead half-brother. His confession was recorded by the Chronicle. Adam Murimuth in French. Edmund was beheaded in Winchester on the 19th of March 1330 at the age of 28. The executioner refused to wield the axe and fled unwilling to behead a king's son, so a common criminal was persuaded to behead him on promise of being pardoned. So this whole thing is really weird because why did Edward the second half-brothers think that Edward was still alive a couple of years later? and a lot of historians act as though Edmund acted alone because they're convinced that Edward II was dead in 1330, not surprisingly,

and claiming that Edmund, Earl of Kent, was the only person who thought that he was alive is easier to deal with. And it's therefore often claimed that Edmund must have been stupid and gullible, which actually he wasn't, and it's not really a fair assessment of a man who was killed for trying to help his brother. And one thing that's often ignored is that many dozens of other men joined him in 1329, 1330. And a few years ago, I had an article published in the English historical review about Edmund's

followers. And so the most important among them was the Archbishop of York, who I'll come to in a minute. The Bishop, Mayor and one of the sheriffs of London, several other sheriffs, several important lords such as Lord Beaumont, Lord Wake, Sir Fulke Fitzwarrin, Sir Inger and Berringer, a few friars, and quite a large number of men who had once served in Ed with the second household. and a lot of these men were arrested and imprisoned and their lands in good seized and many others fled the country before they could be arrested. So it really does seem that a lot of men believed in 1330 that Edward II was still alive and were willing to act on that belief despite the risks. And yes, so the most important person acting for Edudwood II in 1330 was William Melton, who was appointed Archbishop of York in 1317 and died in 1340.

Archbishop Melton knew Edward the second very well for most of the king's life. He'd become a clerk in Edward's household when Edward was about 12, possibly before, and was one of the few men who spoke out against Edward's forced abdication in early 1327. On the 14th of January 1330, Archbishop William Melton sent a letter to the Mayor of London, Simon Swanland, who, as far as I'm aware, was a cousin of his in some way. And the letter states directly that our liege-law, Lord Edward of Carnarvan, meaning Edward II, is alive and in good physical health and in a safe place. So that's a direct quotation from the letter, which was written in French. Melton told Simon

Swanland to keep the new secret not to tell anybody and asked him to procure a number of items for Edward, which somehow would be given to Edward in captivity, perhaps at Corth Castle. Simon Swanland was a draper by profession, and Melton asked him to provide cloth of various kinds. riding gear, miniver fur, leather to make boots for him, belts and so on, and also to find the sum of £200 in gold, at a time when most people earn something like £2 or £3 a year. So Melton's letter still exists in Warwickshire County Record Office. It was originally discovered in 1911 and then forgotten about and rediscovered about 35 years ago.

Archbishop Melton was arrested in 1330 and taken before the King's Bench on charges of trees. because he'd informed Edward II's Scottish friend, the Earl of Mar, and the Earl of Mar offered to bring an army to England to help free Edward. Putting together the evidence of the Earl of Kent's confession and William Melton's letter, it seems that the plan was to release the former king from Corfe Castle and take him by boat along the coast to Kent's castle in Sussex. And from there it seems, although we can't possibly know for sure, that it was planned for him to go abroad somewhere rather than try to reclaim his lost throne.

But of course, we don't know for sure that Edward II actually was still alive in 1330. We just know that a number of people obviously believed that he was and started acting on it. And the government of Edward the 13, who was still underage and not ruling his kingdom, was arresting people in 1330 for saying that Edward II was still alive. And there's another letter as well which indicates that Edward II might have lived long past 1327. So in the 1330s, there was an Italian man. man called Manuel Fieski, who was a notary of the Pope and later became Bishop of Veceli, a town southwest of Milan. Manuel Fieski came from a noble family of Genoa who were massively

influential in Italian politics and also in the church, so two Fieski men served as Pope in the late 13th century, and some of them were related to the English royal family. Manuel himself wasn't, but one of his cousins was Luca Fieski, who was a cardinal, who was known to Edward the second in person and whom Edward always acknowledged as his kinsman. So centuries later in the 1870s, a letter was discovered in an archive in Montpellier in France, written by Manuel Fieski, an address to Edward III, though whether Edward ever received it, we can't prove. The letter can be dated to about 1336 to 1338. And in the letter, Manuel explains in detail how Edward the second escaped from Barclay Castle in 1327 before he could be murdered, how he spent time at Corfe

Castle in Dorset, then he went to Ireland for a while, then he travelled to the continent where he visited Pope John the 22nd in Avignon, and finally he travelled over the Alps into Italy and ended up living at a hermitage that can be identified as Sant Alberto DiBuccio, a few miles south of Milan. So this letter is really odd because what could be Manuel's purpose in writing it. Telling the King of England that his supposedly murdered father was actually alive in Italy. It's really something. And some historians speculate that it was intended as some kind of blackmail, and perhaps it was. But then if Edward III and everyone else knew for certain that his father was dead and buried in Gloucester, how was blackmail supposed to work? It's difficult to think of a

motive for an Italian lawyer and future bishop, who came from one of the most powerful families in Northern Italy at the time, to lie to the King of England if Manuel Fieski didn't believe that what he was saying was true or think that Edward III might believe that it could be true. And I have friends in Italy who are searching through archives there, hoping to find some confirmation of the letter, and perhaps to prove that Edward II actually did end up in Italy. Though currently as the situation stands, we can't confirm that the letter is true and based in reality. But it is interesting that a lot of people in Northern, than Italy, even today, had told a story when their children about a king of England who sought

refuge in Italy and died there. No one ever seems to know who this king was or even what century he lived in, but it's a very widespread story. And quite a few Italian people have told me in person that they heard it when they were children. And in the 1920s, researchers found a man of close to 90 years old who had heard this story of the English king in Italy when he was a child. So it's been around for a good long time. And finally, it will just come to the situation of William the Welshman. So in 1337, Edward III claimed the throne of France and spent much of the period 1338 to 1340 outside England

seeking allies against the French. In September 1338, Edward III visited Courblent in Germany and met the German Emperor Ludwig of Bavaria and lots of other important German politicians. So while Edward III was in, Corblens, his own wardrobe account reveals that he received a visit from a man called William the Welshman who asserts that he is the father of the present Lord King, quote unquote, and calls himself the King of England father of the present king, quote unquote.

So that appears twice in the account that this William the Welshman claimed to be Edward the Third's father, and he was brought to Edward III in Corblen's by an Italian sergeant-at-arms called Francesco Fortetti. In the Middle Ages, royal pretenders were often executed or imprisoned, but that didn't happen to William the Welshman, and he spent time with Edward III and received money for his expenses. And I should point out that Edward II was actually born in Wales, in Carnarvan. And it's just quite odd, really, to see someone in the royal accounts being called the king's father.

And it doesn't say William the Welshman, who falsely asserts to be the king's father. it's reported neutrally. And on its own, this piece of evidence perhaps doesn't mean very much, but when we take it in combination with all the other evidence, it's perhaps rather more meaningful. So I think as in total, we do have a fair bit of quite plausible evidence that Edwold I might have survived past 1327, or at least that a lot of people thought that he did.

And it sounds like weaving throughout all of those instances, there is the potential for a continuity of idea of plan that perhaps there was a desire to make out that Edward the second was dead to stop the threats in his favour. He was either moved or he escaped to Corfe Castle. From there, the plan wasn't to make him king again, but to get him to the south coast and then away overseas. He potentially makes it to Italy. Striking William the Welshman is bought by an Italian soldier, suggesting he could have come from Italy. So there is a way in which all of these apparently disparate bits of evidence do stitch together to tell quite a comparison.

compelling story? Absolutely, yes. I think so they do. In some ways seem to tie together quite well, don't they? Yeah. I mean, as someone who Richard III and the princes in the tower is my big passion, so lots of the evidence that's always thrown at Richard the 3 for the princes in the tower is every deposed king is always murdered. So for me to think that it's possible that you might put out a story that a king might be dead to stop threats in their name, but what you actually do is whisk them away to safety. And Edward III could have known that his father was living in Italy, posing him no threat and was willing to go and see him when he's on the continent, maybe not invite him back to England, but it's striking that that meeting takes place

outside of England on the continent. All of these things are so fascinating to me because it plays into so many other mysteries and preconceptions that we have about history as well. So I'm going to put you on the spot now. What do you think is the truth about the fate of Edward II? Oh my goodness. As Ed was a biographer and someone who's been obsessed with Edward the Second for more than 18 years now. I would absolutely love to think that Edward II wasn't murdered in 1327. And I have actually visited the hermitage of San Alberto DiBuchria a few miles from Milan. And it's a wonderful place. It's up in the hills, gorgeous views over a valley. It's very peaceful. And I would just love to think of Edgewood II living there peacefully, years after everyone thought he was dead.

and given that Edward was such a lover of doing physical labour and so friendly to people of much lower rank than he was, I think it's arguably much more plausible for him of all people to have lived such a life than it would be for just about any other medieval king of England. I do realise that without any actual proof other than Manuel Fieski's letter, this may well be wishful thinking. So if Edward II was murdered at Berkeley Castle in 1327, I just hope that it was done for something like,

he was given sedatives in his sleep and then smothered. So, you know, he didn't know anything about it. And I'm absolutely as certain as I can be about anything that the red-hot poker story is a myth, thankfully. Yeah, it was good to put that one to bed, I think. We'll just get rid of that one altogether and we'll stop talking about that one. I think the idea that perhaps Edward could have been happier

living that life in Italy than he was trying to rule England, something he obviously had absolutely no desire to do, is also a fascinating element of this story. you know, he wouldn't have wanted to come back and take his throne back because he didn't want to be king. He could have been quite happy living this peasant life almost in the Italian countryside. It sounds like a dream. So how do you think we could go about solving this mystery? Do you think there is any evidence out there that we might be able to uncover that we'll solve this one way or another?

At the moment, I don't think this mystery can really be solved, given that there's lots of plausible evidence that Edward II did die in 1327 and plenty of seemingly plausible evidence that he didn't, or at least that a lot of important people thought that he didn't. So I just hope that perhaps one day my friend in Italy in a group called the Oramala Project, perhaps they might find something in Italy that could prove that Edward II was there.

I think that might be the only way that we could prove that he did live past 1327. So I'm just keeping my fingers crossed for that. I actually kind of started thinking that it's actually quite common throughout history about royal people who died under mysterious circumstances. who were thought to be alive years later. And just a couple of examples,

Royal people thought to be alive years later. Alexios, the second Comnenos, the adolescent Byzantine emperor, was murdered by his father's cousin in 1183, but several young men over the next few years claimed to be Alexios. And then there was Baldwin of Flanders, the first Latin emperor of Constantinople, who died after being captured in battle in 1205,

but no one was sure how or when or where he died. and almost 20 years later, a pretender claimed to be Baldwin and was taken to Western Europe and met Baldwin's nephew, Louis the 8th of France, though the game was sooner when the fake Baldwin couldn't remember important things such as any details of his own wedding. Perhaps people listening to this might be able to think of their own examples of famous royal people are thought to be alive years after their rather mysterious death. I think another big striking one as well.

It's Richard the second, because if you think about deposed English kings, we think Edward the 2nd is deposed and murdered, Richard the 2nd is deposed and murdered, but there are people alive for decades after Richard the 2nd is supposedly dead who face execution for treason for saying Richard's still alive and he's well and he could come back sometime. And again, all of that just plays into my Princes and the Tower obsession, that if Edward II wasn't killed and Richard the 2nd wasn't killed, you lose that whole argument of having to murder deposed kings. Yeah, it's quite fascinating. And yes, something that we could really think about and how this affects Richard the Third and the princes and the

tower. I think perhaps one key difference between Edward the second and, you know, the couple of examples I mentioned is that many of the people who believed he was alive in 1329 or 1330 were people who had known him personally, including his own half-brother, including an archbishop who'd known him for most of his life, including several dozen men who'd worked for him in his own household. So perhaps this is also something that's relevant. The people who really believe that Edward was alive in 1330 were some of the people, you know, who had actually cared about him the most. They weren't just random strangers. Wow. So it remains a medieval mystery for our medieval mysteries month, but we can remain hopeful that perhaps a document will come to light

somewhere that will help us get to the bottom of what really, really went on in 1327 and beyond. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Catherine. It's been absolutely fascinating to go over all of that detail and evidence to try and get a little bit closer to the truth if we can. So thank you very much for joining. much much, Matt, for inviting me. It's been really fascinating to discuss this with you. It's a pleasure. You can find out more about this mystery and you can review all of the evidence we've been talking about in Catherine's fantastic book, Long Live the King, the Mysterious Fate of Edward II, which is out now to grab a copy. You can join Dr. Kat Charmond

on Tuesday for another brand new episode. Don't forget to also subscribe wherever you get your podcasts from and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. If you get a moment, please do drop us a review or rate us anywhere that you listen to podcasts. It really does help new listeners to find us. If you're enjoying this and looking for a bit more medieval goodness in your life, you can subscribe to History Hits Medieval Monday's newsletter by following the links in the show notes below. Anyway, I've better let you go.

I've been Matt Lewis, and we've just gone medieval with history hits.