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The Bishops and the Deposition of Edward II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2020

Samuel Lane
Samuel Lane*
Affiliation:
Christ Church, Oxford
*
*Christ Church, St Aldates, Oxford, OX1 1DP. E-mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

The deposition of Edward II was a watershed in the legal history of later medieval England. However, the significance of the church in its accomplishment has remained controversial. This article offers a reassessment by providing a brief narrative of the episcopate's involvement in events; analysing the importance of their contribution, with particular reference to the quasi-legal aspect of proceedings; considering whether this participation reflected their own initiative or was something about which they had no choice; and questioning why so many bishops turned to oppose Edward II. It becomes evident that prelates played a key part in Edward II's downfall, and that they became involved as a consequence of the oppressive treatment which he had meted out to them, to their families and to political society more broadly.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 56: THE CHURCH AND THE LAW , June 2020 , pp. 131 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2020

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Footnotes

I should like to thank Rowena E. Archer, who read an earlier version of this article, and the anonymous reviewers, for their helpful comments and suggestions.

References

1 McKisack, May, ‘Edward III and the Historians’, History 45 (1960), 1–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 5–6.

2 The question of whether Isabella and Mortimer were lovers as well as political allies at the time of their invasion and Edward's deposition remains vexed. What is more certain is that they exercised extensive royal authority on Edward III's behalf until the latter's ‘coup’ against Mortimer in October 1330, in an effective regency, with the consequence that the apparently direct transfer of power from Edward II to his son has been dubbed a ‘legal fiction’: Seymour Phillips, Edward II (London, 2010), 488–91, 520–1, 571–2, 611; Andrew M. Spencer, ‘Dealing with Inadequate Kingship: Uncertain Reponses from Magna Carta to Deposition, 1199–1327’, in idem and Carl Watkins, eds, Thirteenth-Century England XVI: Proceedings of the Cambridge Conference, 2015 (Woodbridge, 2017), 71–88, at 85.

3 Tuck, Anthony, Crown and Nobility, 1272–1461 (London, 1985), 93Google Scholar.

4 Knighton's Chronicle, 1337–1396, ed. G. H. Martin, OMT (Oxford, 1995), 360–1; see also Valente, Claire, ‘The Deposition and Abdication of Edward II’, EHR 113 (1998), 852–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 857 n. 4.

5 Caspary, Gerard, ‘The Deposition of Richard II and the Canon Law’, in Kuttner, Stephan and Ryan, J. Joseph, eds, Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Medieval Canon Law (Vatican City, 1965), 189–201Google Scholar, at 198–200; Valente, Deposition and Abdication’, 874–6; Spencer, ‘Inadequate Kingship’, 86–7.

6 Stubbs, William, The Constitutional History of England, 3 vols (Oxford, 1874–8), 2: 361Google Scholar; Edwards, Kathleen, ‘The Political Importance of the English Bishops during the Reign of Edward II’, EHR 59 (1944), 311–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 339; Michael Prestwich, Plantagenet England, 1225–1360 (Oxford, 2005), 217; Roy Martin Haines, King Edward II, 1283–1330 (London, 2003), 187–8; idem, ‘The Episcopate during the Reign of Edward II and the Regency of Mortimer and Isabella’, JEH 56 (2005), 657–709, at 687–92.

7 Mortimer, Ian, The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer (London, 2003), 168, 170Google Scholar; idem, The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III (London, 2006), 52–6; Paul Doherty, Isabella and the Strange Death of Edward II (London, 2003), 108–13; Phillips, Edward II, 536–7; see also Natalie Fryde, The Tyranny and Fall of Edward II, 1321–6 (Cambridge, 1979), 197.

8 Heath, Peter, Church and Realm, 1272–1461 (London, 1988), 79Google Scholar.

9 For a detailed narrative of Edward II's deposition, and a full bibliography of works on his reign, see Phillips, Edward II, 502–40, 614–42. For discussion of the composition of the episcopal bench in Edward II's reign, see Haines, ‘Episcopate’, 658–71. In January 1327, there were sixteen consecrated English bishops (the bishop-elect of Exeter, James Berkeley, only being consecrated in March 1327, after the murder of his predecessor in October 1326) and four Welsh bishops (of which only the bishop of Llandaff, John Eaglescliffe, appears to have had any involvement in events, by attending Edward III's coronation). Only one Irish bishop, Alexander Bicknor, archbishop of Dublin, was to play any significant role in Edward's deposition: Haines, ‘Episcopate’, 692, 706; Nicholas Orme, ‘Berkeley, James (c.1275–1327)’, ODNB, 24 May 2008, online at: <https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-95144>, last accessed 12 September 2019.

10 CCR 1323–7, 655; R. E. Latham, ed., Calendar of Memoranda Rolls (Exchequer), 1326–27 (London, 1968), 110–11.

11 Haines, ‘Episcopate’, 688; Phillips, Edward II, 521.

12 Precisely which two bishops journeyed to Kenilworth is unclear: the Lanercost Chronicle states it was Adam Orleton, bishop of Hereford, and John Stratford (The Chronicle of Lanercost, 1272–1346, ed. Herbert Maxwell [Glasgow, 1913], 254), while the Pipewell Chronicle prefers Orleton and Stephen Gravesend, bishop of London: Harry Rothwell, ed., English Historical Documents, 1189–1327 (London, 1975), 278. That a delegation of two bishops was sent to Edward II at this point is confirmed by a letter from Henry Eastry, prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, to Walter Reynolds, archbishop of Canterbury, but unfortunately this does not name the bishops in question: Literae Cantuarienses: The Letter Books of the Monastery of Christ Church, Canterbury, ed. Joseph Brigstocke Sheppard, 3 vols, RS 85 (London, 1887–9), 2: 204–5.

13 Anglia Sacra, ed. Henry Wharton, 2 vols (London, 1691), 1: 367; Phillips, Edward II, 525–6.

14 Fryde, Tyranny and Fall, Appendix 2, 233–4.

15 The precise composition of this embassy is unclear. The Lanercost Chronicle states that Adam Orleton and John Stratford headed the delegation (Lanercost Chronicle, ed. Maxwell, 255); the Pipewell Chronicle has Orleton, Stratford and Stephen Gravesend (Rothwell, ed., English Historical Documents, 1189–1327, 279); and Geoffrey le Baker gives Stratford, Orleton and Henry Burghersh, bishop of Lincoln: The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbrook, ed. Richard Barber and David Preest (Woodbridge, 2012), 25–6. The Brut, however, suggests that only one bishop was involved in the delegation, namely John Hotham, bishop of Ely: The Brut, or the Chronicles of England, ed. F. W. D. Brie, 2 vols, Early English Text Society original series 131, 136 (London, 1906–8), 1: 242.

16 Geoffrey le Baker, ed. Barber and Preest, 26–7.

17 Thomas, A. H. and Jones, P. E., , eds, Calendar of the Plea and Memoranda Rolls of the City of London, 6 vols (Cambridge, 1926–61), 1: 11–13Google Scholar.

18 Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, ed. William Stubbs, 2 vols, RS 76 (London, 1882–3), 1: 324–5; Haines, ‘Episcopate’, 691–2.

19 George Burton Adams and H. Morse Stephens, eds, Select Documents of English Constitutional History (London, 1901), 99. For the original French, see Valente, ‘Deposition and Abdication’, 879–81.

20 Chronicles of the Mayors and Sheriffs of London, A.D. 1188 to A.D. 1274 … and The French Chronicle of London, A.D. 1259 to A.D. 1343, ed. H. T. Riley (London, 1863), 266.

21 Edward Peters, The Shadow King: Rex Inutilis in Medieval Law and Literature, 751–1327 (London, 1970), 237–41; Helmut Walther, ‘Depositions of Rulers in the Later Middle Ages: On Theory of the “Useless Ruler” and its Practical Utilization’, Revista da Faculdade de Ciencias Sociais e Humanas 1 (1994), 157–68, at 162; see also J. S. Roskell, Parliament and Politics in Late Medieval England, 3 vols (London, 1981–3), 1: 3; Valente, ‘Deposition and Abdication’, 878–9.

22 Peters, Shadow King, 241; David Abulafia, Frederick II (London, 1988), 372–3; Adams and Stephens, eds, Select Documents, 99.

23 Peters, Shadow King, 138–9; Adams and Stephens, eds, Select Documents, 99.

24 Peters, Shadow King, 218, 240; Adams and Stephens, eds, Select Documents, 99.

25 Stubbs, Constitutional History, 2: 364–6; Peters, Shadow King, 234–5; Adams and Stephens, eds, Select Documents, 99.

26 Peters, Shadow King, 241.

27 Ibid. 237; Haines, Edward II, 193; Prestwich, Plantagenet England, 218.

28 Adams and Stephens, eds, Select Documents, 99.

29 The True Chronicles of Jean le Bel, 1290–1360, ed. Nigel Bryant (Woodbridge, 2011), 33; Fryde, Tyranny, 233 (Appendix 2).

30 Valente, ‘Deposition and Abdication’, 857.

31 For example, Heath, Church and Realm, 79.

32 The Register of John de Grandisson, Bishop of Exeter (A.D. 1327–1369), with some Account of the Episcopate of James de Berkeley (A.D. 1327), ed. F. C. Hingeston-Randolph, 3 vols (London, 1894–9), 2: 840; S. L. Waugh, ‘England: Kingship and the Political Community, 1272–1377’, in S. H. Rigby, ed., A Companion to Britain in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 2003), 208–23, at 216.

33 For discussion of the parliament of January 1330, its questionable legality and its importance in Edward's deposition, see The Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, 1275–1504, ed. Chris Given-Wilson et al., 16 vols (Woodbridge, 2005), 4: 8.

34 Anglia Sacra, ed. Wharton, 1: 39–40.

35 Nicholas Pronay and John Taylor, eds, Parliamentary Texts of the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1980), 91.

36 CCR 1318–23, 543.

37 Anglia Sacra, ed. Wharton, 1: 365.

38 Peters, Shadow King, 218–19; 232–7; Prestwich, Plantagenet England, 218.

39 Spencer, ‘Inadequate Kingship’, 85.

40 R. R. Davies, ‘Mortimer, Roger (1287–1330)’, ODNB, 3 January 2008, online at: <https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-19354>, last accessed 12 September 2019; John C. Parsons, ‘Isabella [of France] (1295–1358)’, ODNB, 3 January 2008, online at: <https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-14484>, last accessed 12 September 2019.

41 Nicholas Bennett, ‘Burghersh, Henry (c.1290–1340)’, ODNB, 23 September 2004, online at: <https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-4007>, last accessed 12 September 2019; Mortimer, Greatest Traitor, 70.

42 Roy Martin Haines, The Church and Politics in Fourteenth-Century England: The Career of Adam Orleton, c.1275–1345 (Cambridge, 1978), 3, 135–6.

43 Roy Martin Haines, ‘Stratford, John (c.1275–1348)’, ODNB, 28 September 2006, online at: <https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-26645>, last accessed 12 September 2019.

44 CCR 1323–27, 655.

45 Haines, Edward II, 187; Phillips, Edward II, 522–4.

46 Geoffrey le Baker, ed. Barber and Preest, 25–6.

47 CCR 1327–30, 24; Calendar of Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, 1216–1509, 54 vols (London, 1891–1916; hereafter: CPR), 1327–30, 6, 65; Roy Martin Haines, Archbishop John Stratford (Toronto, ON, 1986), 42, 104, 188–9.

48 CPR 1327–30, 103; CCR 1327–30, 4, 44–5; Haines, Church and Politics, 167, 177.

49 CPR 1327–30, 58, 166; CCR 1327–30, 33–4, 171–2, 188.

50 CCR 1318–23, 543; The Anonimalle Chronicle, 1307 to 1334: From Brotherton Collection MS 29, ed. Wendy Childs and John Taylor, Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series 147 (Leeds, 1991), 100–1; Vita Edwardi Secundi: The Life of Edward the Second, ed. Wendy R. Childs, OMT (Oxford, 2005), 192–3.

51 Lanercost Chronicle, ed. Maxwell, 230.

52 Pronay and Taylor, eds, Parliamentary Texts, 168–9.

53 Chronicles, ed. Stubbs, 1: 315.

54 Haines, ‘Episcopate’, 687–8, 705–6.

55 Anglia Sacra, ed. Wharton, 1: 367; Haines, ‘Episcopate’, 689.

56 Anglia Sacra, ed. Wharton, 1: 367. The fourteen bishops were those of Dublin, Llandaff and every English see apart from Exeter (whose bishop-elect, as noted above, had not yet been consecrated) and Durham (whose bishop, Lewis Beaumont, was presumably occupied in the north): Thomas and Jones, eds, Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls, 1: 12–13.

57 Anglia Sacra, ed. Wharton, 1: 367–8; Chronicles, ed. Stubbs, 1: 324–5; CCR 1327–30, 100. Whether Ross was present at Edward III's coronation is unclear. Many historians suggest that he was absent (e.g. Phillips, Edward II, 539 n. 108), because he is not mentioned in the official record of the coronation or the chronicle accounts. However, R. K. Rose has suggested that he was probably present, for he is recorded as being in Westminster on 1 February to consecrate Simon Wedale as bishop of Whithorn: ‘The Bishops and Diocese of Carlisle: Church and Society on the Anglo-Scottish Border, 1292–1395' (PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1983), 59.

58 Rosalind Hill, ‘Melton, William (d. 1340)’, ODNB, 23 September 2004, online at: <https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-18538>, last accessed 12 September 2019.

59 Roy Martin Haines, ‘Bishops and Politics in the Reign of Edward II: Hamo de Hethe, Henry Wharton, and the “Historia Roffensis”’, JEH 44 (1993), 586–609, at 598.

60 Rose, ‘Bishops and Diocese’, 11.

61 Hill, ‘Melton, William’.

62 Kathleen Edwards, ‘The Personnel and Political Activities of the English Episcopate during the Reign of Edward II’ (MA thesis, University of London, 1937), 331.

63 CPR 1324–27, 302–3; see also Haines, Archbishop Stratford, 166–70.

64 Christopher Given-Wilson, Edward II (London, 2016), 67–75.

65 Rothwell, ed., English Historical Documents, 1189–1327, 547–8.

66 Froissart's Chronicles, ed. John Jolliffe (London, 1967), 7; Scalachronica, ed. Hebert Maxwell (Glasgow, 1907), 70; Vita Edwardi Secundi, ed. Childs, 230–1.

67 Given-Wilson, Edward II, 76–7.

68 G. A. Holmes, ‘Judgement on the Younger Despenser, 1326’, EHR 70 (1955), 261–7, at 265; see also Fryde, Tyranny, 110–18. However, some doubt has been cast on this tale: Kathryn Warner, Edward II: The Unconventional King (Stroud, 2014), 161–2.

69 Flores Historiarum, ed. H. R. Luard, 3 vols, RS 95 (London, 1890), 3: 214. For historiographical comment on Edward's ‘tyranny’, see, for example, Phillips, Edward II, 530–1; Warner, Unconventional King, 161; Spencer, ‘Inadequate Kingship’, 95.

70 Peters, Shadow King, 241.

71 Spencer, ‘Inadequate Kingship’, 85.

72 Siegfried Wenzel, ed., Preaching in the Age of Chaucer: Selected Sermons in Translation, Medieval Texts in Translation (London, 2008), 245.

73 Haines, ‘Episcopate’, 697.

74 Adae Murimuth Continuatio Chronicarum, ed. Edward Maunde Thompson, RS 93 (London, 1889), 46; Geoffrey le Baker, ed. Barber and Preest, 21. They were certainly all with Isabella in Bristol by October 1326, to witness the election of Prince Edward as custos of the realm: CCR 1323–27, 655. These were by no means the only prelates whom Edward had treated poorly who turned to support Isabella; for instance, see also J. L. Grassi, ‘William Airmyn and the Bishopric of Norwich’, EHR 70 (1955), 550–61, at 558–61 (for Airmyn, bishop of Norwich); Edwards, ‘Political Importance’, 340–1 (for Archbishop Reynolds); Haines, Archbishop Stratford, 147–9, 164.

75 J. R. S. Phillips, ‘Bicknor, Alexander (d. 1349)’, ODNB, 23 September 2004, online at: <https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-2359>, last accessed 12 September 2019.

76 James F. Lydon, ‘The Case against Alexander Bicknor, Archbishop and Peculator’, in Brendan Smith, ed., Ireland and the English World in the Late Middle Ages (Basingstoke, 2009), 103–11, at 103–7.

77 Philomena Connolly, ‘Irish Material in the Class of Chancery Warrants Series I (C 81) in the Public Record Office, London’, Analecta Hibernica 36 (1995), 135–61, at 145–6.

78 Lydon, ‘Bicknor’, 107.

79 M. C. Buck, ‘Hotham, John (d. 1337)’, ODNB, 3 January 2008, online at: <https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-13851>, last accessed 12 September 2019.

80 Anonimalle Chronicle, ed. Childs and Taylor, 98–9; Benjamin Thompson, ‘The Fourteenth Century’, in Peter Meadows, ed., Ely: Bishops and Diocese, 1109–2009 (Woodbridge, 2010), 70–121, at 114.

81 CCR 1318–21, 211; Buck, ‘Hotham, John’.

82 Chronicles, ed. Stubbs, 2: 73; CCR 1323–27, 325; Buck, ‘Hotham, John’.

83 Holmes, ‘Younger Despenser’, 265.

84 Vita Edwardi Secundi, ed. Childs, 178–181; Phillips, Edward II, 385.

85 Chronicles, ed. Stubbs, 1: 299; Brut, ed. Brie, 1: 221, 224.

86 Haines, Church and Politics, 137–8; Bennett, ‘Burghersh, Henry’; CPReg, 2: 468–75.

87 Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, ed. J. S. Brewer, J. F. Dimock and G. F. Warner, 8 vols (London, 1861–91), 7: 215.

88 Haines, Church and Politics, 16; John Maddicott, Thomas of Lancaster, 1307–1322: A Study in the Reign of Edward II (Oxford, 1970), 199.

89 Vita Edwardi Secundi, ed. Childs, 202–3; Johnannis de Trokelowe et Henrici de Blaneforde, Chronica et Annales, ed. H. T. Riley, RS 28/3 (London, 1866), 140–2; Holmes, ‘Younger Despenser’, 265.

90 Henrici de Blaneforde, ed. Riley, 141–2; Haines, Church and Politics, 144–50.

91 CCR 1327–30, 44–5; Haines, Church and Politics, 144–6.

92 Haines, Church and Politics, 51.

93 Myers, A. R., ed., English Historical Documents, 1327–1485 (London, 1996), 71–2Google Scholar.

94 Ibid.