The Jaunts of Sirs Thomas and Thomas

The following is adapted from a few paragraphs of chapter 3 of my thesis - the story, so far as it can be deduced from a few records here and there, of one member of the family whose movements in the 1320s I've been piecing together. And his friend.  I thought it might be fun!


In the first three months of 1322, the forces of Edward II and the rebel barons fought out a brief civil war, ending at the Battle of Boroughbridge in the middle of March. In the king’s army were a minor baron called Sir John Engayne and (most likely) his brother Sir Nicholas. In the barons’ army, however, was one Sir Thomas Engayne, actively fighting against his king and, therefore, against his relatives. According to the Boroughbridge Roll – the list of those killed or taken in arms against the king – he escaped after the battle and he fled over the sea, as did several other knights, for refuge in France (CPW II App. 201). Among these knights was one Sir Thomas Roscelyn of Norfolk, son and heir of Sir Peter Roscelyn.

Early in the following year, Thomas must have returned to England. A warrant was issued from Newark for his arrest, and for several others in his company: “Jakemin de Darynton, John de Hereford, parson of the church of Depeden, Robert de la Lee, Walter de Brawode, John de Goldynton, knight, Thomas Rocelyn, knight, Robert de Burer, John de Rothyng and Thomas de Engayne” (CPR EII IV p. 238). Of these men, Sirs Thomas Roscelyn and John Goldynton were at Boroughbridge, and the latter is recorded as being imprisoned as a result, although, in view of this arrest warrant, that may be a mistake (CPW II App. pp. 200-01, MS BL Cotton Cleopatra D IX [Fineshade manuscript] f. 88r).

The hunt was on – but it met with no success. Another warrant was January 6 of 1324, the men still at large. According to this warrant, Sir Thomas Engayne, Sir Thomas Roscelyn and James Darynton spent December and January 1322-23 safely ensconced in the priory of Bermondsey, Surrey, at which Darynton was a canon. Consequently, this warrant demands the arrest of the prior Walter de Lutz and “his fellow monk” Bartholomew de Whytsand, together with both knights, Darynton, Darynton’s brother Percival and one Peter de Mountmartyn, identified as the brother of Sir Ponsard de Mountmartyn. According to the warrant, the canons “received the said Jacominus, Percival, Peter and other persons adherents of the rebels, and especially of Thomas Rosselyn and Thomas Dengayne, knights, in the priory of Bermundsey, co. Surrey, and aided them from the feast of St Nicholas 16 Edward II [6 December 1322] until Shrovetide [8 February 1323], when they permitted them to go away at the expense and mounting of the said prior” (CPR EII IV 358).

No further warrants were issued for Thomas Engayne or Roscelyn. They were never caught - it is likely that they left England and, as many knights were to do, joined those exiles on the continent who were later to join Queen Isabella and Mortimer in their invasion.[1] The Westminster parliament following Edward III’s coronation would have restored them their lands, as it did all those who had lost them in 1322. But we do hear of them again.

In 1329, Henry of Lancaster assumed his executed brother’s mantle and capitalised on his popularity as a martyr to royal oppression, emerging as leader of the baronial opposition to Isabella and Mortimer. In January of that year, Thomases Roscelyn and Engayne were among this Lancaster’s armed forces when he marched into Bedford in open resistance, as were Sir John Goldynton and several other names familiar from the Roll of Boroughbridge. Roscelyn, being one of Lancaster’s four chief adherents, personally arrested and detained the sheriff for the duration of their occupation (CIMisc 274-75). And this time, Sir Thomas did not fight against his family: Sir John Engayne, who had inherited the estate from his uncle John in 1323, was also in Bedford with Lancaster’s party. On February 9, after Henry of Lancaster’s surrender, John Engayne acknowledged a fine of 1200 marks against his Essex lands for his participation in the uprising, and his lands were restored to him on those terms two days later (CClR X pp. 529 and 437).

Roscelyn, however, did not get off with a fine. He and Henry’s other three chief supporters were banished, partly for their part in this uprising and their general trouble-making status, but officially for the murder of Sir Robert Holland the previous October (ODNB “Henry of Lancaster”, CClR X p. 425).[2] The same four men, together with Henry, were pardoned by Edward III on 4 December 1330, following his coup against Mortimer and assumption of personal power. Although the charges against them are mentioned, they are tempered by the addition of “as was surmised by Roger Mortimer, our late enemy” (op. cit. p. 530-31, misfiled under December 1329). Finally, while in exile, Roscelyn was involved or implicated in the Earl of Kent’s attempt to rescue and restore Edward II to the throne (Murimuth 254).

It's interesting (although, lacking data, rather fruitless) to speculate on a hypothetical family dinner around this time, and what turns a conversation on Politics and the State of the Land might have taken.  Nicholas and the older John, whatever their sympathies may have been, held to their legal obligations, while the younger John, although quiet during Edward II’s reign, was later to espouse a similar cause during the queen’s regency. Thomas felt strongly enough (or, of course, was in sufficient financial or legal trouble) to take a stand on the other side, both in 1322 and 1329. Between these years, and possibly earlier, Thomas kept company with Thomas Roscelyn, a man who was a close adherent of Mortimer, and who was later to aid Henry of Lancaster. In each case – Thomas of Lancaster, Roger Mortimer, Henry of Lancaster, even Edmund Earl of Kent – Roscelyn was quick to align himself with the man who presented himself as a force for change in the country. The frequent appearance of Thomas Engayne’s name in conjunction with his may suggest either a man easily influenced by a charismatic personality, or one inspired by a similar desire for change. Roscelyn and his opinions may therefore also have made themselves heard around the family estate at Blatherwycke, if only at second hand.

I’m not sure how close a relative Thomas Engayne was to the centre of the family – another brother to John and Nicholas, another of Nicholas’ sons and thus brother to the younger John, a cousin – but he was close enough to be known and significant to a canon writing at the priory of Fineshade, adjacent to Blatherwycke, of which the Engayne family were patrons.

The Fineshade manuscript (MS BL Cotton Cleopatra D IX, ff. 84-90) includes a version the Boroughbridge Roll, it includes neither the name of Sir Thomas Engayne, nor of Sir Thomas Roscelyn. It can hardly be an accidental omission, or an omission in the exemplar. A Fineshade canon could not fail to notice the name of Engayne above all others in such a list, nor would the exemplar be necessary to make that information known to the priory. That the same accident should extend to the knight who fought with him against the crown and accompanied him in his exile is altogether too much of a coincidence. Whether it is intended as rejection or protection of the exiled knights, the omission must surely be deliberate. Sirs Thomas and Thomas are carefully written out of the event.

This omission throws other silences on the chronicler’s part into interesting relief, illuminating the effort to which he has gone to render the chronicle an impersonal account. One or both of Sirs John and Nicholas Engayne must have been present at the battle and the following parliament, but they are not mentioned. Sir Thomas Engayne and a friend to whose name the chronicler was not indifferent were present in a very different capacity, but the chronicler of the priory carefully deletes them from precisely the point where he ought to have recorded their names. The events most closely detailed by the chronicler are precisely the events which these men experienced, but though that they must have been in his thoughts as he wrote, he who prayed regularly for the Engaynes’ souls mentions none of them. Their presence is systematically erased.

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[1] Mortimer was a logical connection for Roscelyn to seek out, as they seem to have had a substantial prior acquaintance. Roscelyn had aided Mortimer in the Marcher rebellion, and had earlier been one of the “closest circle of Mortimer adherents” who witnessed his son’s wedding in 1316 (Ian Mortimer 79).
[2] Holland had been perceived by Lancastrians as a traitor, as his desertion of that earl on the brink of the Battle of Boroughbridge had been instrumental in his defeat. He had been murdered the previous October, and his head sent to Henry of Lancaster.

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Cited:
MS British Library Cotton Cleopatra D IX ff. 84-90 [Fineshade manuscript].


Murimuth, Adam. Continuatio Chronicarum. In Adae Murimuth Continuatio Chronicarum et Robert de Avesbury De Gestis Mirabilibus Regis Edwardi Tertii. Ed. Edward Maunde Thompson. Rolls Series 93. London: Longman, 1889. 1-276.


Calendar of the Close Rolls [CClR]. 21 vols. London: Public Record Office, 1902-27.
Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous (Chancery) [CIMisc]. 3 vols. London: Public Record Office, 1916-2003.
Calendar of Patent Rolls [CPR]. 49 vols. London: Public Record Office, 1891-1986.
Palgrave, Francis, ed. [CPW] The Parliamentary Writs and Writs of Military Summons. 3 vols. London: Eyre, 1827-34.


Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online) [ODNB].


Mortimer, Ian. The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, Ruler of England 1327-30. London: Jonathan Cape, 2003.

The Judgement and Death of Roger d’Amory (part 2 of 2)

Below are three copies of the Judgement after Boroughbridge (for the context of which, see the previous post).  The first is that passed against Roger d'Amory, the second is an amalgamation of those passed against two different men, the third the generic one from the last folio of the Fineshade manuscript. Following all three is a translation for the Fineshade version - all three are very similar, and the interest lies mostly in the comparison.  The first two are transcribed by me from the Parliamentary Writs (Record Commission, 1830), II, ii, Appendix, pp. 261-267.  The third is my transcription from the manuscript, but I differ little from Haskins' edition (Speculum 4 (1937): 509-511).

The judgement against d'Amory
The judgements against Francis de Aldham and Bartholomew de Ashburnham
The Fineshade version
Translation


1. Roger d’Amory (PW p. 261).
Square brackets are editorial insertions in the Writs; underlining is my expansion of their abbreviations, which follow the manuscripts. Note that d'Amory's judgement uniquely contains a small addendum in which his execution is postponed - see yesterday's post.


Tenor judicii super Rogerum Damory redditi patet in sequenti.

Pur ceo qe vous Roger Damory homme lige notre Seignour le Roy countre votre fay homage & ligeaunce, faucement & traitorousement alastes en Gales ove banner desplye, Chastels & Villes robastes & preiastes, & preistes sa Ville & soun Chastel de Gloucestre & ylumastes sa Ville de Briggenorth & ileok tuastes ses gentz & robastes ses liges gentz & preyastes le pays par my la terre ou vous estes aleez a feer de gwerre en estruaunt soun pople taunqe vous venistes al Chastel notre Seignour le Roi a Tykehalle & ileoqes asigeastes le dit Chastel ove baner desplie com enemy notre Seignor le Roi & du Realme, & la tuastes & nauverastes ses liges gentz, & de illeoqes alastes en la cumpaignye des traytours atteyntz Thomas jadys Counte de Lancastre & Umfrey jadis Counte de Hereford tauntqe a Burtone sour Trente & illeoqes arestutes le gentz notre Seignour le Roi qil ne poient le pount passer, vous armez ove baner displie come tretour & enemy encountre votre lige Seignour & encountre votre fey homage & ligeaunce, & la tuastes & nauverastes ses liges gentz. Et puis [vous] com traytour & enemy notre Seignour le Roi aperceivaunt la venue le Roi forciblement alumastes la Ville de Bourtone, et vous meistes en chaump en batailles ove vos baners desplies attendaunt votre liege Seignour davoir combatoutz ove lui si vous & les autres traytours ussez eou power. Et quant vois veistes la sarraye & forcible venue votre Seignour le Roi lige & des [ses] altres batailles, les quels vous ne osietz attendre ne ne poiez arester e puys tournastes le dos & fuistes dever le North derobeaunt le pays devaunt vous com traytour & robeour tauntqe vous venistes a Tuttebiri.  Et si vous Roger ussez eou a ceo la force & le power le quels traysons, arsons, homicides & roberies chyvaches ove baner desplye & sount notories a Countes Barouns & a altres gentz petiz & grauntz de soen Realme ; agarde notre Seignour le Roi de soun real power & recorde, par quei ceste Court agarde qe pur la traysoun soiez traynez & pur les homicides arsons & roberies pendutz; mes Roger pur ceo qe notre Seignour le Roi vous ad en temps moult amez & fuistes de sa meygne & prives de lui & avez sa nyece esposee, notre dit Seignour le Roi de sa grace & de sa Realte met en respit execucioun de cel jugement a sa volunte.



2. a: Fraunceys de Aldeham & Bartholomeu de Assheburneham. b: Bartholomeu de Assheborneham alone (PW 266-67).
Single square brackets [a|b] indicate differences between the two versions. Double square brackets [[]] are square brackets present in PW. Differences of spelling and abbreviation not noted - where there is a difference, b is used.
NB: there are copies also for Henry de Wilyngtonne & Henry de Mounfort (262); another against B. de Ashburnham (263); Henry Tyeys (264); and Bart. de Badlesmere (265), which adds that his head will be “mys outre la porte de la Ville de Caunterburez pur doner ensaumple as autres qe il nenpreignent tieles traysouns & mauvestes come vous avetz faitz” (“set outside the gates of the City of Canterbury to give example to others that they may not be infected by such treasons and evil as you have done”).


Por ceo qe vous [Fraunceys de Aldeham & vous Bartholomeu de Assheburneham| Bartholomeu de Assheborneham] homme lige nostre Seignur le Roi [ |,] [countre|encountre] vostre foi, homage & ligeaunce [ |,] faussement & tretrousement preistes sa Ville & son Chastel de Gloucestre [ |,] & allumastes sa Ville de Breggenorth & illuqes tuastes [ces|ses] gentz [ |,] & robbastes [ces|ses] liges gentz & preyastes le paiis parmy la terre [ |,] ou vous estes alez a foer de guerre[,| ] tancqe vous venistes au Chastel le Roi a Tikehill[ |,] & illuqes assegeastes le Chastel, ove banere desplye, come enemy du Roi & du Roialme [ |,] & naufrastes & tuastes les liges gentz nostre Seignur le Roi[, &|.  Et] [de illoqes|dilluqes] alastes en la compaignie des treitres atteyntz Thomas jadis Counte de Lancastre & Humfrei jadis Counte de Hereforde , tancqe a Burtonne sur Trente [ |,] & illuqes arrestustes les gentz le Roi[ |,] les queux ne poeynt le pount passer, ove bannere desplaie come tretour & enemy encontre vostre lige Seignur le Roi, vostre foi, homage & ligeaunce, & naufrastes & tuastes illuqes ses liges gentz[, et|.  Et] puis vous & les autres tretours & enemys le Roi apparceyvaunt la venue le Roi afforcement allumastes la Ville de Bourtonne, & vous meistes en chaump en batailles[ |,] ove banneres desplayez[ |,] attendant vostre Seignur lige[ |,] davoir combatuz ove luy, si vous & les autres tretours eussez eu le poer[, &|.  Et] quant vous veistes la forcible venue vostre lige Seignur [,| ] & [de ces|ses] batailles [le queux| ] vous ne [ |les] osiez attendre[,| ] ne ne poiez arrester; tournastes le dos & fuystes vers le Northe[ |,] derobbaunt le paiis devant vous come [treitours & robbours,|tretour] tancqe vous venistes au Pount de Burghe, ou vous [trovastes|tournastes] les liges gentz le Roi[,| ] eanz son pleyn poer [,| ] a lever le poeple [ |,] & de arester les treitours & les enemys [,|.] [&|Et] vous & les autres enemys & treitres illuqes assemblastes a eux [,| ] ove banneres desplaiez [ |,] & aucuns des gentz le Roi tuastes [,| ] & aucuns naufrastes [,| ] ou vous & les autres traitors de vostre faus acord & covyne feustes desconfitz & aucuns tuez [,| ] & vous aucuns [autres| ] des enemys pris, & les autres senfuyrent, issint qe en vous ne demorra poynt [ |,] qe vous ne eussez outree vostre Seignur lige a Bourtonne & pris ses liges gentz eyauntz son pleyn poer a Pount de Borghe, si vous eussez [eu|a ceo] la force [les|& le poer.  Les] queux treisouns, arsouns, homicides [ |,] robberies, chevaucheez ove bannere desplaie sont notoires as Countes [,|& as] Barouns & [ |a] autres grauntz & petitz de son Roiaume. Et nostre Seignur le Roi [&|de] son real poer le record[,|;] pur quoi agarde ceste Court, qe pur la traisoun soiez traynez & pur les robberies & homicides penduz.



3. Fineshade manuscript version: edited transcript
The Fineshade manuscript is a single quire, being one of the booklets contained within BL Cotton Cleopatra D IX - the third of five. Cotton appears to have bound those five together in the 1610s. This is, properly speaking, another manuscript, added a few years after the composition of the rest of the quire – a single leaf, written lengthways and attached to the main Fineshade manuscript along the spine. It is written in an official hand, and appears to be one of the many copies of the 1322 judgement that were re-issued in 1325, as a warning to those who were, by that time, becoming restless again. For this theory George Sayles, “The Formal Judgement on the Traitors of 1322”, Speculum 16 (1941), 57-63.
Paragraph breaks are mine. Line breaks in the ms are indicated with /.

Pur ceo qe vous . j . homme lige nostre seignur le Roi , contre vostre foi homage , e ligeaunce , fausement e treiturousement / pristes sa ville e son chastel de Gloucestre , e aluminastes sa ville de Briggenorthe, e illuqes tuastes ses gentz e robastes / ses liges gentz , e preiastes le pais parmi la terre ou vous estoiez alez a faire de guere , tant que vous venistes au chastel / le Roi de Tykille, e illoqes assegastes le chastel oue baner desplere comme enemi du Roi e du Roialme , e naufrastes e / tuastes les liges gentz nostre seignur le Roi , e de illoqes alastes en la compaignie des treiturs atteintz , Thomas , iadis / Counte de Lancastre , e Umfrei , iadis Counte de Hereforde, tant qe a Burtonne sur Trente , e illuqes arestutes les / gentz le Roi , qils ne poeint le pount passer ; armes oue baner desplere comme treitours e enemis contre vostre lige / seignur le Roi , vostre foie , vos homages , e ligeaunces , e naufrastes e tuastes ses liges gentz illoqes , e puis vous e les / autres treitours enemis le Roi aperceiuaunt la venue le Roi aforceement , aluminastes la ville de Burton , e vous / meistes en chaumpe en batailles oue baners despleres attendants vostre lige seignur dauoir combatu oue luy . Si vous / e les autres treitours eussez eu a ceo le pouer , e quant vous veissez la sarre e forciable venue vostre seignur lige e de ses batails , / les queux vous ne osiez attendre , neue poer aresteer ; tournastes le dos , e fuistes deuers le Northe enrobaunt le pays de/ uante vous. come treitours e robeours tanqe vous venistes au Pount de Burghe, ou vous trouastes les gentz le Roi / eant son poer a leuer le poeple , e de aresteer les treitours e les enemis le Roi , Et vous e les autres treitours e / enemis illoqes assemblastes a eaux oue baner desplere , e ascuns gentz le Roi tuastes , e ascuns naufrastes , Ou vous e / les autres treitours de vostre faux accorde e coueigne feustes descomfiz. e ascuns tues , e vous e ascuns autres des / enemis pris , e les autres senfuirent issint qen vous ne demura point , qe vous ne eussez encontree vostre seignur lige / a Byrtonne e puis ses liges gentz eant son poer a Pount de Burghe, si vous eussez en a ceo la force e pouer. Les / queux treisons , arzons , homicides , Roberies , cheuauchees oue baners desplerez ; sount notoirs as Conts , Barons , e / altres grantz e petitz de son Roialme. Et nostre seignur le Roi de son Roial pouer le recorde , Par qei ceste Courte / agarde qe pur la treisone serez treine , e pur les Roberies e homicides ; pendu. /



4. Fineshade manuscript version: translation

For that you, a liegeman of our lord the King, contrary to your faith, homage and allegiance falsely and traitorously took his castle of Gloucester, and burnt his city of Bridgenorth; and there you slew his people and robbed his liegemen and plundered the country throughout the land where you had gone to make war, until you came unto the King’s castle at Tykille.

And there you beseiged the castle with banners unfurled as enemies of the King and of the realm, and wounded and slew the liegemen of our lord the King; and you went from that place in the company of the attainted traitors Thomas, sometime Earl of Lancaster, and Humphrey, sometime Earl of Hereford, unto Burton-upon-Trent; and there you impeded the King’s men that they might not cross the bridge, armed and with banners unfurled as traitors and enemies against your liege lord the King, your faith, your homage, and alliegance, and wounded and slew his people there.

And then you and the other enemy traitors of the King, perceiving him approaching with great strength, burned the city of Burton and took to the field of battle with banners unfurled, awaiting your liege lord to fight against him, if you and the other traitors should have the strength thereto.

And when you saw the well-armed and mighty approach of your liege lord and his batallions, which you dared not meet and could not hinder, you turned your backs and fled towards the North, plundering the country before you, like cowards and thieves, until you arrived at Boroughbridge, where you found the King’s men, bearing his power to raise men and to arrest traitors and enemies to the King.

And you and the other traitors and enemies assembled there, with banners unfurled, and slew some of the King’s men, and wounded others; and there you and the other traitors of your false accord and covenant were defeated, and some were slain, and you and certain others of the enemies taken, and the others fled so that not one remained for you, that would not have met with your liege lord at Burton and then with his liegemen bearing his power at Boroughbridge, if you had had the force and power to avoid it.

And these treasons, arsons, murders, robberies, and raids with banners unfurled, are notorious to the Earls, Barons and other greater and lesser men of the realm. And our lord the King by his royal power records it. For which this court finds that for the treason you should be drawn, and for the robberies and murders, hanged.

The Judgement and Death of Roger d’Amory (part 1 of 2)

This post was actually written a couple of weeks ago, but given the proximity of the date, I figured I might as well save it for an anniversary post!

On the 13th or 14th of March, 1322, Roger d’Amory died – ‘obiit morte propria’ – at Tutbury Priory, Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire[1].  As the remaining rebel barons fled north, their numbers greatly depleted, d’Amory was left at Tutbury to await the arrival of King Edward II, who had completely routed the rebel forces at Burton-upon-Trent on the 10th.  The castle was surrendered to him immediately, and with it d’Amory.


The phrase above, ‘obiit morte propria’, is from the Fineshade chronicle’s list of the slain, exiled, imprisoned and executed barons and knights after the denouement of the rebellion at Boroughbridge (16 March) [2].  Literally ‘died his own death’, it seems to refer to death from wounds sustained in the battle (not, eg, ‘natural death’), standing in contrast to the death in battle (as Hereford and others) or execution (as Lancaster and most others). It must have been a severe incapacitation to prevent him fleeing north with the other rebels, given the reception he could expect; and, given he captured Worcester for the rebels in January, and seems to have participated actively in the battle of Burton-upon-Trent, it can hardly have been a lingering illness. [3]

What is clear is that he was not executed.  In Edward’s eyes, d’Amory was a traitor, and he passed on him the same sentence that he passed on the others.  The sentence was largely the same for each of the traitors, differing usually only in details about which specific treacherous activities they were involved in – eg, some were not present at the burning of Bridgnorth, and for obvious reasons d’Amory’s sentence omits the usual itinerary after Burton-upon-Trent. I will include the usual text and d’Amory’s judgement in the following blog post. The sentence was sufficiently standardised that it was possible, some years later, when Edward needed to quash rising murmurs of rebellion again, to re-issue generic versions of it with no name attached at all.  One of these is the final folio of the Fineshade manuscript. [4]  There is, however, one moment in which the judgement on d’Amory departs dramatically – and, for me, rather movingly – from this standard.

Roger d’Amory was not just any traitor to Edward.  Edward II’s reign was characterised by his intense emotional attachments to a few favourites – Piers Gaveston in his early years, Hugh Despenser from about 1319 until the deaths of both men in 1327.  But in the years between the murder of Gaveston in 1312 and the emergence of Despenser as clear favourite, Edward had instead a group of men who were close to him and influential, d’Amory among them.  In 1317 Edward even arranged d’Amory’s marriage to Edward’s widowed niece, Lady Elizabeth de Clare / de Burgh. [5]  Edward tends to leave unambiguous traces of personal attachments on the historical record, and d’Amory was without question one of the ‘in’ crowd for those years.

Just why Roger d’Amory joined the movement against Edward that became a rebellion is, of course, unknown and unknowable. Politically, broad guesses might be made: Despenser had ousted him and the other ‘group’ favourites; Despenser and his father were dangerous and greedy and both sides were becoming increasingly litigious and violent; d’Amory and Despenser were both married to sisters of Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, who had died without issue in 1314, leaving his vast estates to be divided (and debated) among the husbands of his sisters. [6]  Logical reasons may be sought for one course of action or another, but the deciding emotions in the case – on the part of either man – are not a matter for historical inquiry. In the usual way of things I’d leave them be, but there are moments when they strike me forcibly.  Speculation aside, here is a man who had been very close to the king, who joined a movement against him that Edward took very personally (not to mention his fierce grudge against Lancaster, who gradually assumed the mantle of leader), and whom Edward found dying in Tutbury of wounds sustained in his first major engagement with the rebels’ troops.

In most of the copies of the judgement I’ve read, the conclusion reads as follows, with only the usual differences of spelling and punctuation:

Les queux treisouns, arsouns, homicides, robberies, chevaucheez ove bannere desplaie sont notoires as Countes & as Barouns & a autres grauntz & petitz de son Roiaume. Et nostre Seignur le Roi de son real poer le record; pur quoi agarde ceste Court, qe pur la traisoun soiez traynez & pur les robberies & homicides penduz. [See following post for citation.]
The which treasons, arsons, murders, robberies, and raids with banners unfurled, are well-known to the Earls, Barons and other greater and lesser men of the realm.  And our lord the King by his royal power records it.  For which this court finds that for the treason you should be drawn, and for the robberies and murders, hanged.

So the sentences passed on Bartholomew of Ashburnham and Francis d’Aldham; so the general sentence preserved in the Fineshade manuscript; so, up to a point, the judgement on d’Amory.

But d’Amory’s, uniquely, continues:

& pur les homicides arsons & roberies pendutz; mes Roger pur ceo qe notre Seignour le Roi vous ad en temps moult amez & fuistes de sa meygne & prives de lui & avez sa nyece esposee, notre dit Seignour le Roi de sa grace & de sa Realte met en respit execucioun de cel jugement a sa volunte.
and for the robberies and murders, hanged; but Roger, because our Lord the King did at one time love you greatly and you were of his company and close to him and did marry his niece, our said Lord the King, by his grace and his royalty, defers the execution of the said judgement according to his will.

I found this at a moment when I was looking for something else.  I wasn’t prepared for it, wasn’t thinking about these two men and their relationship, was not particularly invested in its termination.  But I found it suddenly and deeply touching. D’Amory would die: that much was clear.  It was necessary to pass the sentence of death, but it was not necessary to kill him.  He was dying already; and perhaps if Edward had been feeling particularly vindictive he might have dragged him out to the gallows.  But he didn’t: he deferred the punishment and let him die ‘morte propria’, not the death of a thief.
Edward, however, was not there to see it.  Roger d’Amory died on the 13th or 14th of March, 1322, and on the 11th Edward had left, pushing north in pursuit of the fleeing Lancaster.

Sometimes, in reading these documents – particularly in manuscript form – these moments just happen, moments in which I find I have to pause and sit back for a moment to allow myself to realise the weight of centuries-past human emotion behind the tiny glimpse afforded by the words on the page.  It is necessary to sit back because distance is, of course, necessary. Emotion is a difficult and potentially highly subjective field of study, and I’ve not the courage nor the background to go there yet. Even if I did, the question is irrelevant to my present studies, and in engaging my own emotions too far could potentially jeopardise my discussions of (particularly) Edward’s actions in these few months.  But I think it is also necessary to have that realisation.  Just from time to time.



[1] Here and elsewhere, for specific (and occasionally debateable) details as to people’s lives – particularly dates – I have preferred to follow their biographies in the online Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, accessed 7 February this year.


[2]  BL Cotton Cleopatra D IX, mss. 3 and 3a within the codex, f. 88r l. 8, published by George L. Haskins as “A Chronicle of the Civil Wars of Edward II,” Speculum (1939): 73-81.  I will include my edition of this chronicle and the documents attached to it as an appendix to my Masters thesis, and will publish it if I can.  The only other extant copy of this list, in MS Egerton 2850, calls itself “Les nouns des grauntz mortz a Borghbrigge le Marsdy  & le Mekerdy apres la feste Saint Gregoire”, and says of d’Amory merely that he “fust mort un poy devaunt a Tottebury”.  The Egerton list is transcribed in Parliamentary Writs and Writs of Military Summons, 2.2.ii, Appendix pp. 200-01, but I couldn’t get hold of it without actually going to the British Library anyway, so I just read both!  That was the first roll I ever handled.  It was rather nerve-wracking.

[3] See also Kathryn’s post on the latter part of his career on her Edward II blog, where she includes (among other details) other contemporary theories about his death.

[4] For this argument see George Sayles, “The Formal Judgement on the Traitors of 1322”, Speculum 16 (1941), 57-63.  He writes in response to Haskins’ publication of the Fineshade judgement, in which Haskins attempts to identify it as passed upon a single condemned (“Judicial Proceedings against a Traitor after Boroughbridge, 1322,” Speculum 4 (1937): 509-511).

[5] While in London last October I transcribed, on Kathryn’s request, a letter from Edward to Elizabeth on the matter, written 10 September 1316.  I’m sure I remember Kathryn writing a blog post based on it, but I can’t find it now – sorry Kathryn!  I may do something on it myself, as it’s rather interesting on its own terms – there are three clear stages of revision to it, in three different hands, and each revision sounds sterner than the last.  Edward clearly had second (and third) thoughts about Elizabeth’s biddability – and given she’d run away with and married Lord Verdon early in 1316, he probably had good reason.

[6] The third sister was Margaret, widow of Piers Gaveston and remarried in 1317 to Hugh d’Audley, another of Edward’s then-favourites.

Annales Tres Seu Quattor Chronicarum: On MS BL Add. 54184.

Yesterday, after poring over it in the manuscripts room of the British Library, I gathered my courage and sent an email to their manuscripts department about MS Additional 54184, suggesting an amendment to its catalogue listing.

Add. 54184 is a manuscript of (mostly) the second quarter of the fourteenth century, from the great old monastery of Ramsey in Cambridgeshire. As it stands, it presents a history of England from her mythic origins to the (then) present day. Rather than composing their own, Ramsey used the Historia Anglorum of Henry of Huntingdon up to the death of King Stephen (1135, ff. 1-48v), the Annales Sex Regum of Nicholas Trevet up to the death of Edward I (1307, ff. 49r-130v) and – according to the British Library’s catalogue – Adam Murimuth’s Continuatio Chronicarum from the ascension of Edward II (1307) to the election of Pope Benedict XII in 1334 (131r-144r):

Murimuth's full Chronicle covers the period 1303-1347. The present text, headed 'Incipiunt Annales Regis Edwardi filii Regis Edwardi . . .', is very similar to that printed in E. Maunde Thompson, ed., Adam Murimuth Continuatio Chronicarum, Rolls Series (1889), pp. 3-219. Entries for 1307-1308 are different and much fuller in the present MS., which is not listed by Maunde Thompson, than in the Rolls Series version. A. Hall, who published the text under the title Adami Murimuthensis Chronicon (1721) was aware of the existence of the MS. in the posession [sic] of the Earl of Cardigan, but does not use the fuller 1307-1308 material in his version.

And there is a good reason that he didn’t (whether he knew it or not). The years 1307-1308 (ff. 131r-133r) are not Murimuth. Even if this were the only extant witness to them, that fact alone (in a chronicle so much copied ) would suggest that the author was a monk at Ramsey (or the author of Ramsey’s exemplar) rather than Murimuth. It would, in that case, be an interesting appendix to an edition of Murimuth – particularly as it is very full, very detailed, and very colourful in its language (in complete contrast to Murimuth’s usual style) – but one could hardly ascribe authorship to him.

But, in fact, this is not the only extant witness to this text. It’s actually the Annales Paulini for those years, the annals of St Paul’s in London, which Bishop Stubbs published as part of the Rolls Series in the 1880s. And that accounts for it being so well-informed about the London events – the coronation, in particular, is so detailed that I was seriously wondering (on my first quick read-through) if the Abbot had been a guest, and if so, how (given he died in 1314, if memory serves) he had managed to pass on such an anecdotal account to his monks that it was remembered in great detail in (at earliest) the mid- to late- 1330s. And even that wouldn’t account for the degree of geographic and locational specificity in the account, which sounds very much like a Londoner’s (as, of course, it is).

So I was reading it, becoming more and more incredulous about the idea of it being derived from Ramsey, and becoming increasingly sure that I’d read it before somewhere, when I came across the line “In omnem igitur terram exijt rumor iste / quod Rex plus amaret hominem magum malificum quam sponsam suam” (f. 132r ll. 21-22) - “And therefore across all the land arose this rumour, that the king loved an evil male sorcerer more than he did his wife”. And I said to myself, “Ah. THAT chronicle”.

So I checked it more thoroughly against Stubbs’ version, and found it is word-for-word the same, save for the opening sentence and some shuffling at the end of 1308, and the occasional scribal variants – preferring a few odd constructions of the perfect stem, and, entertainingly, amending Gaveston from being “poten[s]” (powerful) in the realm of England to “puten[s]” (stinking) in the realm of England. Which, I have to say, is entirely in character for language used by the chronicler elsewhere.

And so I daringly emailed the manuscripts department and suggested they mention the presence of a short extract from the Annales Paulini in the catalogue (mentioning the folio numbers and corresponding page numbers in Stubbs). We shall see what they think.

Thomas the fugitive, run to ground

Well. Not quite. But I know where he was in February 686 years ago. That counts for something, right?

So, part of trying to understand the history and composition of a manuscript I'm working on involves tracing the Engayne family and trying to ascertain just what they were doing in the Lancastrian rebellion of 1321-22. John Engayne, the head of the family, was the patron of the priory that wrote the chronicle, and it's probably safe to say that he (or his heir of the same name - he died sometime in the second half of 1322[1]) gave the priory the documents which it appended to that chronicle, and (most likely) contributed to their opinions, knowledge and loyalties about the events in question. Unfortunately, I can't say for certain that he even participated. However.

Going through the Patent Rolls, I find passing references to various other members of the family - mostly uninformative notices such as their signatures as witness on various grants and so forth, not enough to say which Engaynes were about at the time, especially since many of them shared names. But even without knowing which is which, many of the references are suggestive. In 1326, for example, while Edward is a little busy with a certain invasion, two different Engaynes are among those listed as committing acts of violence against the lands of men who are away in the King's company, armed in his service. There are similar moments leading up to the battle of Boroughbridge in 1322. Nothing that one could cite as definite evidence of the activities of John Engayne, but certainly suggestive of the loyalties of some other members of his family.

However, I am most fond of one Thomas Engayne. I have no idea how he is related to the others, but I like him most of all because he is absent from the Fineshade manuscript. Absent, that is, from the list at the end of the chronicle of those who have fled overseas following Boroughbridge, even though the only other extant witness of this list includes his name. Omission, possibly, but is it likely that one could accidentally forget to copy the name of one's patron's family?

Sadly, I could find nothing more about this Thomas - until yesterday.

January 30, 1323. Stow Park. Writ of aid for John le Barber, Andrew Roskyn and Richard de Mereworth appointed to arrest Nicholas de la Beche, knight, Jakemin de Darynton, John de Hereford, parson of the church of Depeden, Robert de la Lee, Walter de Brawode, John de Goldyngton, knight, Thomas Rocelyn, knight, Robert de Burter, John de Rothyng and Thomas de Engayne. By K. (Edward II vol. 4, p. 238)

He's back in the country! And they don't want him. The Engaynes, by the way, have a manor at Darington, so there is a connection there with at least one of the other knights in company with him.

I thought I would hear no more about this fugitive band, but apparently they were more sneaky than expected! Almost a year later, they are still at large, and their hunter is very belatedly uncovering their tracks:

January 6, 1324. Henley. Writ of aid for John de Weston, commissioned to arrest Walter de Lutz, now prior of Bermundeseye, Bartholomew de Whytsand, his fellow monk, Jacominus Darynoun called James de Darynton [Jakemin from the previous writ?] and Percival his brother, and Peter de Mountmartyn, brother of Sir Ponsard de Mountmartyn and Thomas Rosselyn and Thomas Dengayn; it having been found by inquisition made by John de Weston and Hamo de Chigwell that the said prior and his fellow monks Bartholomew de Whytsand and Godfrey de London had received the said Jacominus, Percival and Peter and other persons adherents of the rebels, and especially of Thomas Rosselyn and Thomas Dengayn, knights, in the priory of Bermundeseye, co. Surrey, and aided them from the feast of St. Nicholas 16 Edward II [6 December 1322], until Shrovetide [8 February 1323], when they permitted them to go away at the expense and mounting of the said prior. By K. (Edward II vol. 4, p. 358.)

This sounds like the stuff of a Walter Scott novel. Roving bands of fugitive knights, outlawed for their part in fighting for the cause of (today's flavour of) justice, hunted by authorities, sheltered in secret by small, sympathetic convents. Just don't mention that little cote you raided for poultry (and/or women) last Sunday.



[1] He died sometime during that regnal year, ie, between July 1322 and June 1323, but we have a presentation dated January 4 1323 of a new rector to a church in his estate, performed by Edward II because John Engayne is dead and his heir is underage. I think it's probably safe to say that he didn't die on January 1, 2 or 3.

Slippery stories

Stories are supple things. They are far more (in many senses) than fact: they twist into myth and retrospect and drama and allegory as occasion demands. Sometimes they evolve by deliberate choices made by retellers, but mostly by shifts in emphasis, an embroidery here and there - or an error that just seems to fit.

I'm currently working on (among other things) a small, early 14C chronicle collection from the priory of Fineshade, which Cotton bound with a few other contemporary historical works to form Cotton Cleopatra D IX. The Fineshade manuscript contains transcripts of a few letters associated with Thomas of Lancaster's 1322 rebellion against Edward II, and a short chronicle of a few thousand words, written a year or two later (so before the deposition in 1327), narrating Edward II's reign in retrospect, as a story culminating in the events of 1322. The chronicler is not always correct in his facts, especially for the early years - he's far more accurate as he approaches the rebellion. However, where he errs, he errs in favour of improving the story.

For example, this author has the date of the Earl of Gloucester's death wrong. Gloucester died in 1295 (from memory), but here he dies after Edward II's accession, in the midst of the shower of ill-advised gifts that Edward is busy bestowing on Piers Gaveston, just so that Edward can also gift him Gloucester's daughter (Edward's niece) in marriage. This fits into the carefully structured 'gift crescendo' - royal money and treasure, then money and treasure extorted by taxes, then a wife of royal blood, then the earldom of Cornwall, all capped with a proverb about what sudden accession of power and riches does to a man's head. Gloucester’s death immediately preceding the betrothal, and perhaps acting as a catalyst for it, also fits with the theme of flouting the wishes of the dead patriarch.  Just as Edward seems destined to ‘throw away’ all that his father gained, no sooner is  Gloucester’s daughter Margaret left alone by the death of her father than the man who ought to have replaced him as her protector – her uncle the king - ‘wastes’ her on an upstart Gascon. There is probably also an implied parallel here between Margaret and the treasures “safely stowed [in the Tower] by his ancestors, so long ago that memory has faded”[1], which were also (according to this writer) given carelessly away to Gaveston.

The story, in this writer's hands, becomes a cohesive piece of literature in which the flaws that concern him most in Edward II's character are evident from his early years and provide the cause of all that comes after. They are even prophesied by Edward I before his death. The figures of Gaveston and Despenser stand less as players in their own right than as reflections (or strategic deflections?) of these crucial flaws in the king's character, embodying the financial mismanagement - first by inappropriate generosity and increasingly by violence - that in the view of this writer characterised Edward's reign.
There is also a more specific and interesting example of the evolution of a story in this manuscript which I think the writer did not intend. I should mention at this point that fragments of the collection, the chronicle among them, were published in the 1930s by George Haskins in Speculum and the EHR[2], but that, in examining the microfilm, I'm finding myself correcting Haskins far more often than I would have expected for a few pages of chronicle[3]. There are, of course, some matters of opinion - but one of them, I really wish he'd commented on. Here's an image:

Full sentence, with abbreviations expanded into italics: "Quod rex ut audiuit grauiter mouebatur in animo & peticionem imporor[sic]-/tunam ferens indignanter ips?m ad terram deiecit pedibus que conculcauit dicens / totam regionem anglicanam per ipsum fore amittendam" - "And hearing that, the king was greatly moved in his soul and, taking the importunate petition, flung ? indignantly to the earth and trampled it with his feet, saying that he [his son]  would give away the whole of the realm of England.

This is early in the story, and it is what looks like a popular (and probably oft-repeated) myth of Edward II's early years. A better-known version of it is in the continuation of Walter of Guisborough's chronicle. We know that Prince Edward went to his father and asked him to grant the county of Ponthieu to Piers[4], that Edward I was rather displeased and refused, and that very soon after this, probably as a result, Piers was banished from England. Of course, we don't know Edward I's actual reaction - Walter of Guisborough's chronicle gives an extravagant account of Edward I's violent fury - he calls his son "fili meretricis male generate" (base-born son of a whore) and tears out as much of his hair as he can manage before throwing him out (ed. Harry Rothwell, Camden Society 89, 1957, pp. 382-83)[5].

And here is another version of what seems to have been a popular story circulating[5]: this chronicler has Edward I "indignantly taking the importunate petition [the physical object, presumably]" and throwing... something to the ground and stamped on it. And what that something is - the petition, or his son - depends on how you expand ipm.

Haskins writes ipsum without comment - masculine, so Edward I is physically attacking his son, as in the Guisborough version. And yes, when reading a chronicle or a series of letters dealing with politics you become accustomed to expanding abbreviated ipm as masculine, because it usually refers to a person and almost all the actors in these events are male. But there's actually no reason it can't be feminine ipsam, so far as I can see – and thus refer to the petition.  The sentence would scan rather better syntactically, not to mention logically. Why take the chronicle just so that you can kick your own son? If the writer had wanted to avoid ambiguity he could have used a little 'a' above ipm (as below over abbreviated "tractati"), but this writer is not careful about ambiguities, and tends to go with muscle habit when it comes to abbreviations - see the quote above, where he absent-mindedly writes 'importunam' in full, but also adds a horizontal stroke to the stem of the p, which is the abbreviation for 'per' or 'por' (he does something similar a few page later, writing 'opprobrium' but adding a hook behind the first 'p' so that it technically reads 'oproprobrium'). And he is more accustomed to the single horizontal stroke about ipm - he's written it many times on the last few pages. To amend it, he'd have to stop and think about possible misinterpretations. Context is usually enough - but in this case, context fails him.

And that makes it interesting. Because a story with violence displaced onto a non-human object suddenly has the potential to have the violence directed to its cause, which rather disrupts the author's otherwise stable themes of proper and proportion use of power. Because any reader who loves drama who comes to read this manuscript later, without the author around to correct them, will be more likely to read ipsum than ipsam, because it's more usual. And - well, it makes a far more interesting and dramatic story, doesn't it? Particularly if they've also read the Guisborough version, and thus have the suggestion of violence in their mind. Fling the paper, or beat the son? Experience tells us which is likely to have the greater staying power.

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[1] All quotes in this post are from  f. 87r of the manuscript.  I’ll post the text of the whole – and eventually a translation – when it’s tidied up.


[2] “A Chronicle of the Civil Wars of Edward II”, Speculum (1939): 73-81; “The Doncaster Petition, 1321”, English Historical Review 53 (1938): 478-485; “Judicial Proceedings against a Traitor after Boroughbridge, 1322”, Speculum 4 (1937): 509-511; for the latter see also George Sayle's correction of Haskins' error in “The Formal Judgement on the Traitors of 1322,” Speculum (1941): 57-63.


[3] He frequently leaves out or inserts 'et', or (in the Anglo-Norman documents) one or the other of commonly paired words like 'lige' and 'seygnur' in 'notre seygnur lige le roy'. Twice he skips an entire line, and several times he mis-expands an abbreviation. I think he must have had little time with the ms and been mostly working from his own notes in preparing the edition, because some of the errors just look like haste. Will post more about this at some point.


[4] This chronicler actually says Cornwall, rather than Ponthieu, which is the earldom Edward II gave Piers when he became king himself "iuxta sui desiderium prius conceptum & ordinatum" ("as he had already desired and fixed upon") - another example of retrospective narration, in which the story becomes smoother and more coherent.


[5] Given Walter of Guisborough seems to have died c. 1304, and this was supposed to have taken place in early 1307, this particular story can't have been narrated by him, but his successor seems to have inherited his flare for dramatic exaggeration and putting speeches into the mouths of his characters.

Piers Gaveston's cups and Edward II's incontinence

So, yesterday I was browsing through the indices to various issues of the journal Northamptonshire, Past and Present to see if Fineshade Priory (or, failing that, Castle Hymel or John Engayne) got even a passing mention anywhere (they didn't), and I found something completely different, and rather entertaining.  The index to the 2008 issue pointed to one reference, on page 20, to a certain Piers Gaveston.  Naturally I went to investigate, and then almost embarrassed myself with laughing too loudly in the stacks.

The article was a guide to the various chronicles known as belonging to, written by, edited by, derived from or possibly misattributed to Peterborough (Nicholas Karn and Edmund King (and what a perfect name), "The Peterborough Chronicles", pp. 17-29).  And Walter of Whittlesey, writing early in the fourteenth story, includes what Karn and King call "the abbey's 'Piers Gaveston story'" (20).  Translation is mine, because I am picky:

And in the thirty-fourth year of the reign of that King Edward [I, so c. 1306]... the abbot Godfrey also received at the Borough lord Edward, son of that king, and lord Piers Gaveston, and to these he sent gifts as is here narrated: When the abbot's messenger reached lord Edward with a certain cup to the value of 50 pounds[1], he asked intemperately ('petiit idem Eduuardus incontinenti') if a gift had also been sent to lord Piers. When the messenger replied that he had not, he disdained the cup and would not receive it: the messenger then seeking out the lord Piers upon the abbot's command bearing a cup valued at 40 pounds, he was granted admission and the abbot's gift was joyfully received with thanks ('gratanter donum abbatis recepit, gratias agens quam facere'). The messenger was also sent on the abbot's behalf as if to beg the advice of lord Piers on the question of whether the other cup would now prove pleasing to the lord Edward, and he replied that it would; the messenger then revealed that he had not wished to receive it, and the lord Piers summoned his chamberlain to say to him, 'Go to the lord Edward and tell him that I would like him to receive the abbot's gift'.   Upon their returning to the said lord Edward with the said cup as directed, he received them gladly, bestowing thanks on the abbot ('gratias conferens abbati') for his gifts.  [2]

But the thing is, this isn't a Piers Gaveston story - it's an Edward story. It isn't Gaveston's behaviour that's the problem here, but that of the future king.  Not only does he insist on putting Gaveston on a similar status to himself, as a guest in his own right rather than part of the future king's train, but he sends the Abbot - the Abbot of Peterborough, no less - supplicating to an untitled knight for the favour of the prince.  The prince who is his guest.  Gaveston's reception of his gift actually shows Edward up - he 'gives thanks' to the abbot (using 'agere', which is to the best of my knowledge the usual verb coupled with 'gratias'[3]), and even has an adverb to emphasise his gratitude, while Edward, when he gets around to deigning to accept the gift, seems to give his thanks as a favour ('conferre'). The difference in Walter's word choice there could be due to the difference in their rank, but given the exasperation (and, I think, glee) of the narration, I suspect he's playing the two scenes up in deliberate contrast.

Of course, I understand what Karn and King mean when they call this "Peterborough's  'Piers Gaveston' story" - everyone had one, I'm sure, just as many later had a 'Hugh Despenser' story. He lent himself to flamboyant stories, and Edward certainly wasn't one for being diplomatic about it (although, honestly, Edward, Abbot of Peterborough + host). But Piers Gaveston is never just Piers Gaveston.  He's a metaphor for what Edward does wrong - just as the whole sodomy thing in contemporary accounts is never about sodomy, but about the imbalance of power that was perceived to be threatening the entire structure of the state[4]. The abbot is denied access to the prince who is his guest, in stark contrast to the civil visits and interactions with his father narrated immediately before this tale. The abbot is forced to almost double the value of the polite gift-giving he expected on the occasion of a royal visit.  The abbot is humiliated, via the messenger, and not only the messenger but the whole monastery are clearly destined to know about it, and probably recount it in gleeful detail.  The vividly imagined little scenes, even the snippet of direct speech from Gaveston, savour to me of repeated retellings and scandalised delight.

I'm assuming, on those grounds, that the story is at least a little exaggerated, possibly embellished with details from other similar 'Piers Gaveston stories'.  But even in its bare bones, it's interesting, firstly (and most reliably) as witness to the types of stories people were telling and relishing at this point, but also for the hazy glimpse it affords us of the actors within it.  Even if only a little of the story is true, Edward is becoming increasingly defensive about people's reactions to Gaveston at this point, and making it worse with his own behaviour.  I'd say he's 'acting out' in a teenage way by taking advantage of those times when he's away from his father to enforce his opinion of the proper order of things - and it is completely characteristic of him at this period, to be recognising only in his father any kind of restraint, or constraint, to the extent that he does not feel the need to be bound by usual codes of polite social interaction.

Well, why should he.  He's the prince.  And people just keep slighting his Piers.  They deserve a little tetchiness.


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[1] Karn and King say 100, but Sparke's Latin clearly reads L, not C.  They may have silently corrected this in consultation with manuscript sources; but I am translating Sparke's edition.  In light of the value of Gaveston's cup, it's not an insignificant question - is the knight worth 4/5 or 2/5 of the prince?
[2] Walter of Whittlesey's continuation of the Peterborough Chronicle; ed. Joseph Sparke, Historiae Coenobii Burgensis Scriptores Varii, London 1723, 171-72.
[3] Cf the Latin of the Gloria in the mass - 'Gratias agimus tibi propter magnam propter magnam gloriam tuam'.

Hugh Despenser: a finger in every pie...

... and lo, the pie was then abruptly smashed and everyone did make a grab for the finger. And they clamoured over the rings thereupon.

Cotton Vesp. A xviii[1] contains a cartulary of Ramsey Abbey of the mid-1300s. On f. 113v there’s a list of the abbots from its founding (though incomplete) with a sentence or less about each. Except for Simon of Eye, abbot from 1316-1342. In place of his entry, we have a long and detailed obituary, amounting to a short biography or chronicle (pp. 349-353 in Macray’s edition). It is headed “De obitu Simonis Eye quondam Abbatis, et de diversis notabilibus per ipsum factis in vita sua” (Of the death of Simon of Eye sometime Abbot and of the diverse deeds of note performed by him in his lifetime); but the “notabiles” that the composer saw fit to record are obsessively, almost exclusively, concerned with money.

The first page and a half in Macray’s edition, after a brief introduction (in which we are informed that he spent lavishly on strengthening the church against “persecutiones” and “insultus”), are almost entirely a list of “Item adquisivit” and “Item emit” (also he acquired, also he bought).

The second section of the obituary is a more expansive narrative of his abbacy, but it is also heavily structured by the movement of money. The title seems to suggest a story marked by the conventions of martyrdom – ‘Placita et adversitates quae sustinuit pro ecclesia sua’ – but if so, Simon’s trials and sufferings are only financial. Even the grand narrative of national affairs is phrased in these terms. For 1326, the year in which Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer invaded England, deposed Edward II and set his son on the throne in his place, this author reports that the abbot “sustinuit magnum certamen et laborem cum illis de Ramesey [the village] propter mutationem saeculi quia dominus Rex cum matre sua applicuit in Angliam” (351). The dramatic deposition and incarceration of a crowned king appears only as it causes trouble to Simon de Eye and arguments with the villagers.

But this next section in particular entertains me.  The monk writing is terribly indignant over what happened the following year, when Isabella, Mortimer and Edward III stopped by to visit.  The villagers got uppity again, and the men and women of Ramsey, because of “malam voluntatem versus dictum abbatem” (ill will towards that abbot), accused him of treachery before the king.  The charge was “ipsum habere magnam partem thesauri Hugonis le Despenser nuper suspensi” – that he had taken to himself a large part of the wealth of Hugh Despenser, then lately hanged.

Poor Hugh. To the best of my knowledge he hadn’t any property in the area (though, let’s face it, he had some just about everywhere by that stage), but his thesauri seems to have reached legendary status, especially in a country still suffering through the effects of the Great Famine (technically ended 1322, but all those abandoned villages and unsown crops and reduced labour forces take their toll).  Accusations and acquisitions naturally attend the downfall.  Even if Eye had not grabbed some (and the author doesn’t comment on that, because he’s too busy being indignant), it was obviously credible enough or easily enough imagined that the villagers thought it was a good accusation to effectively get the king on their side in their ongoing struggles with the abbey.

The most entertaining thing, I find, is that the author isn’t really concerned with telling the story of the accusation and its outcome, but rather the story of how outrageous and ungrateful those sorry little plebeians were, and how poor long-suffering Simon was such a martyr for putting up with them.  His last word on the subject is that “[p]ropter quae idem abbas pacifice sustinuit magnam tribulationem, ac diffusas fecit expensas pro dicto falso clamore sedando” – on account of these accusations that abbot pacifically suffered great trials, and it cost him many expenses to subdue that false clamour.

And note the terms in which his martyrdom is expressed? Good old money.

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The relevant passage:

… dominus Rex cum matre sua Regina et aliis filiis et cum Rogero de Mortuo Mari, instinctu dicti Johannis de Hothom tunc cancellarii Regis, venerunt apud Rameseiam cum tota familia eorum, ubi plures de Rameseia tam viri quam mulieres, attendentes malam voluntatem versus dictum abbatem, in adventu ipsorum Regis et Reginae dictum abbatem false et malitiose accusabant et traditorem regni vocabant, asserentes ipsum habere magnam partem thesauri Hugonis le Despenser nuper suspensi. Vendicabant etiam mercatum de Rameseia, communiam in diversis locis, et alias libertates eis injuste ablatas et subtractas. Propter quae idem abbas pacifice sustinuit magnam tribulationem, ac diffusas fecit expensas pro dicto falso clamore sedando.

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[1] Published in the appendices of the Chronicon Abbatiae Rameseiensis, which should be called the Liber Benefactorum Rameseiensis, as the main manuscript calls itself. Ed. W. Dunn Macray. London: Longman and Co., 1886. Rolls Series 83. 351.

A study of Cleopatra D IX: MSS III, IIIa, ff. 84-88, 89. Fineshade collection.

A collection of letters and a chronicle relating to the civil wars of 1321-22, from the priory of Fineshade, with a related proclamation from 1325 attached.

Description.

III: Parchment, 5 ff. Single column of 40 lines. Two letters and a petition transcribed, followed by a short chronicle and some notes. In two hands, one predominant, with occasional corrections suggestive of composition rather than copying in the chronicle and no similar errors in the previous documents. A, the primary scribe, uses a rounded and rather irregular Anglicana, with heavy downstrokes that can tend toward the blotchy, irregular minims, and a rather awkward serpentine ‘s’ whose lower bowl sits noticeably below the line. B, who writes less than half a page on 87v before A resumes on 88r, uses a contemporary Anglicana that is smaller and more regular, with consistently angled curves and controlled decorative flourishes on his maiuscules. Miniscule ‘a’ is typical of the differences between the two hands: A’s lower bowl varies in size relative to the x-height, to the extent that the eye is sometimes broad and sometimes almost non-existent, while the upper bowl is left open as the pen-stroke trails off. B’s ‘a’ has a lower bowl that is usually consistent with the x-height, while the upper bowl is firmly closed with a broad stroke. Some pages also have contemporary marginal notes, in a hand that appears to belong to A, though smaller and in a lighter ink.

IIIa: An official proclamation of the judgement against the traitors at Boroughbridge, issued 1322 or 1325, on a smaller sheet of vellum, approx. 250x150 mm (Haskins, “Proceedings” 511). Added later, according to Sayles, which accords with Ker’s assessment that only ff. 84-88 originate from Fineshade (Ker, Libraries 87). The text of the judgement is written lengthwise on the page, in a clear, contemporary hand. Two titles have been added at a later date, one “at least as late as the middle of the fourteenth century”, the second modern (Haskins, “Proceedings” 510-11). The first is partly obscured by a torn corner of the parchment (the bottom right?), and reads “COMENT LE CUNTE DE LANCASTRE FU ACOUPE DEVANT …[?la bataille de Pount de Burgh et jugee a] LA MOR[?t...]”. The second is smaller, inserted between the first and the text, and reads (more accurately) “Judicium in Barones captos apud Burgh Bridge” (qtd. in Haskins, “Proceedings” 511).

 

Contents.

- 84v: A copy of the king's letters of prohibition issued to Engayne and others forbidding attendance at a meeting at Doncaster, November 1321. Chronologically, follows the previous entry. Latin, ½ p.

- 84v-85r: A letter of summons from Lancaster to John Engayne, urging him to attend a meeting at Doncaster on 29 November, 1321. Anglo-Norman, 1 p. Incipit:

A honurable homme et nostre trescher amy, Monsure Johan Dengayne, Thomas, / Counte de Lancastre et de Leycestre [etc], saluz / e cheres amitez. Sire, pur les granz periles et oppressions et grantz maux, qe nous / sentoms et entendoms... (qtd. in Haskins, “Petition” 483; in all quotes from Haskin’s editions, it must be assumed that he has regularised punctuation and spelling.)

- 85r-86r: A petition drawn up by Lancaster’s adherents for the forbidden meeting at Doncaster. It may have been composed at the meeting or in preparation for it, as there is no evidence that it ever took place (Haskins, “Petition” 479). Anglo-Norman, 1 p. Incipit:

A touz honours e reuerences, &c. Sire, pleysea a vostre seynurie sauer come plusurs e de-/-uerse greuaunces qui sont monstrez a nous e a nos autres bon piers de la tere... (qtd. in Haskins, “Petition” 483).

- 86r-88r: A short chronicle of the civil wars of Edward II, focussed primarily on the battles in Yorkshire in 1321-22. The final eight lines on 87v and all of 88r comprise a roll of the dead, executed, imprisoned and exiled after Lancaster’s final defeat at Boroughbridge. Haskins notes that this list apparently has a common source with a similar roll in MS Egerton 2850: each omits some names contained in the other, and the ordering of the names suggests that the original was in two columns, which one copyist read from left to right while the other read down (Haskins, “Chronicle” 74). Latin, 3 ff. Incipit:

Anno dominice incarnacionis .M°.CC°. octogesimo quintodecimo et regni regis Edwardi / .xx°ij°. et etate Edwardi filii predicti regis Edwardi quartodecimo. Cum idem rex transfre- / -tasset in Flandriam causa pacis inter regem Francie et comitem Flandrie, vt dice- / -batur, reformande... (qtd. in Haskins, “Chronicle” 75).

- 88v: A list of other historical notes which Haskins labels “various entries of no interest” Haskins, “Chronicle” 73). Presumably they were of some interest to the chronicler, but we are left to speculate as to their content. Latin, 1 p.

- 89: An official issue of the judgement against the rebels of Boroughbridge. Names Lancaster and Hereford personally, leaving the remainder general. Anglo-Norman, 1 f. Incipit:

Pur ceo que vous .j. home lige nostre seignur le Roi, contre vostre foi, homage, e ligeaunce, fausement e treiturousement / pristes sa ville e son chastel de Gloucestre... (qtd. in Haskins, “Proceedings” 483).

Although Planta’s catalogue, still the official catalogue of used by the British for the Cotton collection, describes this manuscript as a whole simply as “Fragments relating to the civil wars”, even this brief summary of the contents reveals a greater cohesion of purpose than the term “fragments” implies. Gathered as they are, this manuscript – and here I include the additional leaf – tells a story, and rather a personal one. The first three documents seem to be copies of those possessed by John Engayne with relation to a single fraught political event of late 1321, and the chronicle, while it begins with the generalised lurid speculation and frequent inaccuracies that characterise rumour-informed accounts of Edward II’s earlier reign, becomes both more accurate and more emotionally invested as it approaches the final battles of 1321-22, with its sympathies firmly in the baronial camp. The addition of the judgement adds a literal closing page to a grim chapter of recent history, recalling the epitaphical list of the victims of Boroughbridge incorporated by the chronicler into his final pages.

Date.

Hardy dates the chronicle at 1327 (395), though the narration ends in 1322. It shows no awareness of the invasion and overthrow to come in 1326-27, unless this is noted among the entries on 88v. The judgement was issued in the aftermath of Boroughbridge in 1322, but Sayles demonstrates that this manuscript is among those re-issued as a general warning in 1325 (61), at which time sufficient copies were made and distributed that “the chronicler would have had little difficulty in securing one for his own use” (57).

Origin and authorship.

An unknown canon from the Augustinian priory of Fineshade in Northamptonshire (Ker, Libraries 87). The letters and petition have been transcribed from another source, by the same hand (A) that appears to have composed the chronicle. Several errors, corrected by the same hand interlinearly or midway through the line, are suggestive of composition rather than copying: for example, on several occasions on ff. 87r and 87v the scribe simply changes his mind on word order. The relation of A to B is unknown, though they seem to be working in close collaboration, but A appears to be the dominant force in writing the chronicle and collecting the supporting documents.

Given the location of Fineshade, therefore, it is curious that the letters and petition focus on events in the north, and the chronicle in addition shows a first-hand knowledge of events in the north beyond what can be accounted for by those documents. Haskins conjectures that the author is a northerner, “probably from somewhere in the county of York, for his account becomes at once more accurate and detailed as the scene shifts, in the spring of 1322, to the region of Boroughbridge and Pontefract” (“Chronicle” 74). Although this precedes Ker’s establishment of its origin, the point remains valid. We must suppose either that the chronicler was a northerner who moved south to Fineshade sometime between 1322 and 1325, or that he had access to the personal memories of someone heavily involved in the final stages of the baronial rebellion.

Both may be true: while the style of the chronicle seems to show a level of personal investment that may be indicative of a local’s attachment, a canon writing at Fineshade had a possible witness in the person of John Engayne, the local baron and a follower of Thomas of Lancaster. Richard Engayne had founded Fineshade in the 1208 (Knowles & Hadcock 137), and the pope’s confirmation in 1223 gave the establishment the right to elect their own prior without consent of the Engaynes (Serjeantson & Adkins 135). Nevertheless, they seem to have retained a close enough relationship with their erstwhile patrons that the priory (or the canon personally) could borrow and transcribe the letters and petition that were presumably among John Engayne’s personal papers.

This being so, there is a possibility that the memory and personal involvement reflected in the chronicle belong to John Engayne, shared in conversations with the canon who was writing what amounts to a history of Engayne’s experiences. Engayne died in 1323 or early 1324 (Dugdale 466), so perhaps it is not too great a leap to speculate that the chronicle may be partly coloured and motivated by reverence for his memory.

If, on the other hand, we hypothesise a smaller role for Engayne, limited to the loan of his papers (possibly by his estate after his death), we return to the supposition that the chronicler himself was a Yorkshireman, who moved to Fineshade after the disturbances of the civil wars. In this scenario, it may have been the move itself – from a place shaken by events that were justifiably felt to be of national importance, to a place less impressed by or less knowledgeable about those events – that prompted the impulse to record, to draw a comfortingly cohesive history from the catastrophe.

Later provenance and position in codex.

There is no evidence of the movements of the manuscript after its composition, and no later additions save the mid-fourteenth-century title on the final leaf. Fineshade was dissolved in 1536 (Knowles & Hadcock 137), and the manuscript may be presumed to have fallen into private hands at this date, if not before. The date and source of Cotton’s acquisition are not known, but it seems to appear on none of his loan lists, so was probably not among his most popular possessions with his fellow antiquarians.

Lacunae and potential.

- Perhaps the most frustrating lacuna is one that could easily be solved by examining the manuscript: the contents of those “various entries of no interest”, which have the potential to add tantalising clues (though possibly no answers) to the question of the date, circumstances and motivation of authorship.

- The field of candidates for authorship is pleasingly narrow, given the probable size of Fineshade at this period. However, without details of the names and biographies of all the canons resident in the 1320s, there is little evidence to pursue beyond that point.

- The exact relationship between Engayne and the chronicler is probably not discoverable. It may be possible, however, to find out a little more about the final two years of Engayne’s life, and whether his experiences in the war hastened his demise a year later.

 

Cited.

Dugdale, Sir William. The Baronage of England. London, 1675.

Haskins, G. L. “Chronicle of the Civil Wars of Edward II.” Speculum 14 (1939): 73-81.

----- “Judicial proceedings against a traitor after Boroughbridge, 1322.” Speculum 12 (1937): 509-511.

----- "The Doncaster Petition, 1321." English Historical Review 53 (1938): 478-485.

Ker, Neil R. Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books. London: Royal Historical Society, 1964.

Knowles, David & R. Neville Hadcock. Medieval Religious Houses: England and Wales. London: Longmans, Green & Co, 1953.

Planta, Joseph. Catalogue of the manuscripts in the Cottonian Library deposited in the British Museum. The British Museum: Department of Manuscripts. London: Hansard, 1802.

Sayles, George. "The Formal Judgments on the Traitors of 1322." Speculum 16 (1941): 57-63.

Serjeantson, R. M. & W. R. D. Adkins (eds). “Houses of Austin canons: The Priory of Fineshade or Castle Hymel”. A History of the County of Northampton v. 2. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1906. 135-36.

A study of Cleopatra D IX: Introduction.

For an earlier mention of my investigations into this manuscript, see this post. Some things mentioned in it turned out to be incorrect or were dropped from the final study because I pursued a different angle, but I’m leaving it as is.

BL Cotton Cleopatra D IX has received only intermittent scholarly attention, and that piecemeal. Here a poem has been isolated from its manuscript and published, there a list of names or saints’ lives has been analysed for its relation to other such sources. One line – and not the most reliable - from a single chronicle has repeatedly been quoted to add weight to arguments that Edward II’s relationship with Piers Gavaston was sexual, with no consideration of the source.[1] As the codex is an early seventeenth-century assembly of disparate fourteenth-century texts, it has received no consideration as an entity; and it might reasonably be argued that it ought not. The authors and scribes of the various manuscripts contained in it certainly intended no relationship to the others, and Cotton’s assembly of it has no great psychological or historical significance. Moreover, the manuscripts contained in it are generally obscure enough that there must remain serious lacunae in our comprehension of the provenance and movements of the component parts, until the moment of their combination.

However, the mysteries and tantalising clues of their histories are precisely what have the potential to inform our broader understanding of the composition and later reception of manuscripts of this type. A collection of this type provides a ready collection of facts, impressions and resulting hypotheses – all potentially mistaken but all valuable to speculate around - of circumstances, motivations and habits of composition, and simultaneously of the treatment which the manuscripts were likely to receive at the hands of the early modern antiquarians.

Combined and bound by Cotton around 1616, the volume contains three large manuscripts (the Liber Alani de Ashbourne, the Epistola and the South English Legendary fragment), between which are bound two briefer manuscripts (a brief chronicle from Gloucestershire and the Fineshade chronicle collection). There is a considerable degree of order and intent in the collection and arrangement of the manuscripts in the volume, but it remains a superficial imposition. This volume was one of many assembled by Cotton from similar manuscripts in the mid 1610s, and as such is part of a larger project in which page size and number of folios seem also to have been a weighty consideration.

The codex begins with what Cotton probably considered the most valuable or useful of the book: the Fineshade collection was borrowed by Archbishop Bancroft in 1608 and consulted by John Selden c. 1617 (Tite 45 & 215), and before it fell into his possession had been copied and incorporated into other histories of the bishopric and the county. The first four manuscripts are reasonable uniform in size and nature, as well as appearance and layout if Brereton’s error is indicative (see later entry on the Liber Alani de Ashbourne). There is some thematic continuity, also, between the concerns of the Fineshade chronicler and William of Pagula’s reproaches against Edward III’s governance (mss III-IV). All are products of fourteenth-century England, although there is a possibility that the Epistola (ms IV) was copied in Gascony, and Cotton appears to have gone to some effort to arrange them into chronological order, which would require more than a passing glance at their contents.

The fifth manuscript, a fragment of the South English Legendary, stands out: popular culture, non-historical (at least to post-Reformation eyes), highly Catholic, middle English and clearly incomplete, the only elements in common with its companions seem to be its size and date.

A possible clue to its inclusion can be found in the original fly-leaves of the volume as Cotton bound it. Until 1913, the codex had fly-leaves formed of two leaves from a fourteenth-century psalter. The same psalter was also cannibalised for binding material for at least twenty-five other newly assembled Cotton volumes c. 1615-1618, most of which what appear from Planta’s catalogue to be similar historical collections, often local or monastic. Carley and Tite document this fragmentation, and have concluded that the remaining bulk of the psalter, which was bound into what is now Royal 13 D I, was intended by Cotton simply as filler after he removed something else from that volume (97 &c). The psalter has now been reunited with its missing leaves, rebound in 1913 as Royal 13 D I*, but its traces leave a useful record of Cotton’s activities in the mid 1610s.

As demonstrated by his treatment of the psalter, Cotton’s approach to his library was utilitarian rather than reverential, and he frequently fragmented or rebound manuscripts according to convenience of consultation. Sharpe observes that items “were bound together that were often consulted together” (69). This codex seems only to half embody that impulse: the first four booklets can all be described as fourteenth-century local histories with a broader political view, but the South English Legendary fragment stands alone. Perhaps it was added, being an appropriate size, simply to complete the bulk of the volume for binding, as with the psalter in Royal 13 D I. If this was the motive, we cannot exclude the possibility that Cotton himself is responsible for dismembering the complete South English Legendary manuscript as he did the psalter: they are, after all, both overtly Catholic texts with little of interest to offer Cotton’s generation of antiquaries. Perhaps we ought to seek its missing leaves in the pastedowns and fly-leaves of other Cotton volumes.

Individually and as a group, from a literary perspective or a codicological, there are difficulties with using the contents of Cleopatra D IX as a historical source. The scope of vision of each is local and limited, and much of the information unique to these manuscripts can’t be relied upon unless verified from other sources. Similarly, there are simply too many lacunae to construct a firm picture of their composition, transmission, later history and collection, so they serve as a definite historical example neither for their own time nor for Cotton’s. On the other hand, there are benefits to using texts like these as a historical source. I do not mean the more mundane benefits that Haskins points to when he praises the Fineshade chronicle’s ability to augment and correct another manuscript’s list of the dead and punished after the Battle of Boroughbridge in 1322 (Haskins, “Chronicle” 74-75). This sort of information-gathering has its place, of course, but only as it helps us understand more broadly the human and cultural implications behind the development of these manuscripts.

For example, the multiple layers of composition and contribution evident in each of the first three manuscripts provide a valuable example of the dangers of applying modern assumptions to a term like “author”. The presence of Des Grantz Geanz in the Liber Alani de Ashbourne, meanwhile, performs a similar service for the term “historical”.

In addition, comparison with other similar manuscripts could also provide the grounds for a detailed and powerful study of the motivations behind much of the historical writing of this period. Edward II’s reign, with its natural and civil upheavals and perceived perversions of the natural order upon which society was built, seems to have prompted a flurry of chronicles and other similar documents, suggesting a widely-felt need both to record momentous events to impose some imaginative order on them. While these manuscripts seem to belong, to varying degrees, to that tradition, they also give us a glimpse of a flurry of possible personal motivations informing the writing, from duty to the local parish to displacement from home, from higher instruction to memories of the dead.

The information gathered in the entries to follow is of necessity incomplete, even beyond the true lacunae imposed by time and obscurity. Only one page of the manuscript has been sighted in its assembly – f. 87v, reproduced in the appendix below. The remainder of the information is collected and deduced from the attentions of other scholars, some of whose interests lay in very different directions to my intent. For example, William of Pagula’s Epistola has received a respectable amount of attention, and much is now known about the circumstances, motivation and dating of its composition; but not one description of this manuscript is to be found. Brereton has published Des Grantz Geanz, from the Liber Alani de Ashbourne, but commenting on the contents of the other sections of the manuscript is out of her purview. This information, then, is incomplete, and many gaps could be filled by a simple trip to the British Library.

It should be also noted that in its assembly, I have deliberately engaged in speculation. Many hypotheses have had to be revised as new evidence came to light, and doubtless as many of the remainder would be proved incorrect if only all the information guessed at were available to us. I make no apology for it, however: the exercise of speculation in considering a collection such as this must be an end in itself, opening up possibilities and raising valuable questions about the individuals involved and the push and pull of cultural motivations in play, about what they believed they were doing in the act of writing, whom they thought they were serving and how, what “history” meant to each and how the community around them interacted with their text. The caveat remains, of course, that such speculation is only valuable – only safe – so long as one never forgets where it begins, and where it must end.

[1] “Quem filius regis intuens in eum / tantum protinus amorem iniecit quod cum eo firmitatis fedus iniit, et pre ceteris morta- / -libus indissolubile dileccionis vinculum secum elegit et firmiter disposuit innodare” (f. 86r, qtd. in Haskins, “Chronicle” 75), usually translated with varying degrees of luridness that occasionally almost match the Latin. References are typically to Haskins, occasionally mentioning the codex by pressmark. (See my previous post).

Cited:

Brereton, Georgine E. (ed). Des grantz geanz: An Anglo-Norman poem. Oxford: Medium Ævum 1937.
Carley, James P. & Colin G. C. Tite. “Sir Robert Cotton as collector of manuscripts and the question of dismemberment: British Library MSS Royal 13 D. I and Cotton Otho D. VIII.” The Library 6th series 14 (1992): 94-99.
Haskins, G. L. “Chronicle of the Civil Wars of Edward II.” Speculum. 14 (1939): 73-81.
Planta, Joseph. Catalogue of the manuscripts in the Cottonian Library deposited in the British Museum. The British Museum: Department of Manuscripts. London: Hansard, 1802.
Sharpe, Kevin. Sir Robert Cotton 1586-1631: History and Politics in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1979.
Tite, Colin. The Early Records of Sir Robert Cotton’s Library: Formation, Cataloguing, Use. The British Library. Bury St Edmund’s: St Edmundsbury Press, 2003.