Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Preface
- List of Contributors
- List of Abbreviations
- Politics and the People in Thirteenth-Century England
- Peasants, Litigation and Agency in Medieval England: the Development of Law in Manorial Courts in the late Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries
- Medieval Accounting Memoranda from Norwich Cathedral Priory
- The Seals of London's Governing Elite in the Thirteenth Century
- The Marriages of the English Earls in the Thirteenth Century: a Social Perspective
- Monks and Politics in Thirteenth-Century Wales and Catalonia
- Lope Fernández, Bishop of Morocco: His Diplomatic Role in the Planning of an Anglo-Castilian Crusade into Northern Africa
- On Kingship and Tyranny: Grosseteste's Memorandum and its Place in the Baronial Reform Movement
- St Edmund of Canterbury and Henry III in the Shadow of Thomas Becket
- Matthew Paris and the Royal Christmas: Ritualised Communication in Text and Practice
- Thomas of Lancaster in the Vita Edwardi Secundi: a Study in Disillusionment
- John and Henry III in the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut
- Genealogiae orbiculatae: Matthew Paris and the Invention of Visual Abstracts of English History
- The Genealogical Chronicles of Matthew Paris: Edition
Thomas of Lancaster in the Vita Edwardi Secundi: a Study in Disillusionment
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Preface
- List of Contributors
- List of Abbreviations
- Politics and the People in Thirteenth-Century England
- Peasants, Litigation and Agency in Medieval England: the Development of Law in Manorial Courts in the late Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries
- Medieval Accounting Memoranda from Norwich Cathedral Priory
- The Seals of London's Governing Elite in the Thirteenth Century
- The Marriages of the English Earls in the Thirteenth Century: a Social Perspective
- Monks and Politics in Thirteenth-Century Wales and Catalonia
- Lope Fernández, Bishop of Morocco: His Diplomatic Role in the Planning of an Anglo-Castilian Crusade into Northern Africa
- On Kingship and Tyranny: Grosseteste's Memorandum and its Place in the Baronial Reform Movement
- St Edmund of Canterbury and Henry III in the Shadow of Thomas Becket
- Matthew Paris and the Royal Christmas: Ritualised Communication in Text and Practice
- Thomas of Lancaster in the Vita Edwardi Secundi: a Study in Disillusionment
- John and Henry III in the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut
- Genealogiae orbiculatae: Matthew Paris and the Invention of Visual Abstracts of English History
- The Genealogical Chronicles of Matthew Paris: Edition
Summary
Ranulph Higden, writing around 1340, said of Thomas of Lancaster: ‘Of this earl and of his deeds there is great strife among common people, whether he should be accounted for saints other none. It is safe to say that, by the twentieth century, there were no such doubts in the minds of historians looking at his life and deeds. While the historiography of Edward II's reign has altered greatly since the days of Stubbs, Tout and Conway Davies, the opprobrium heaped on the head of Lancaster is a fixed point of agreement. Stubbs condemned Lancaster as ‘cruel, unscrupulous, treacherous and selfish’, remarking with Whiggish regret that ‘the cause was better than the man’. Conway Davies described Lancaster as
useless as an opposition leader and worse than useless as an English baron … the truth appears to be that a life which was marked by no virtue, rather by factiousness, selfishness, and licentiousness, was sanctified by its violent end and still more by the unpopularity of the administration of the remainder of the reign of Edward II.
- Type
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- Information
- Thirteenth Century England XIVProceedings of the Aberystwyth and Lampeter Conference, 2011, pp. 155 - 168Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2013