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What were the Scots thinking back in 1290, when they asked King Edward I of England, of all people, to choose them a king?
In 1286, Alexander III, King of Scots, was killed in a riding accident; four years later his heiress and granddaughter Margaret died in Orkney aged just seven, leaving Scotland without a clear successor. Thirteen ‘Competitors’ staked a claim. They were whittled down to two, John Balliol and Robert de Brus, and to John Barbour’s disbelief the squabbling Scots asked Edward I of England to choose the winner.
Peter foretold that King John would cease to be England’s sovereign, and he was right, though John still wore his crown.
Peter of Pomfret (Pontefract, near Wakefield in Yorkshire’s West Riding) was a simple, unlettered hermit who incautiously prophesied that by Ascension Day in 1213, King John would no longer be king of England. When that day had passed, and John still sat upon his throne, the King had poor Peter hanged; but as Sir George Wrong explains, the prophecy wasn’t so wide of the mark.
In 1381, young King Richard II was faced with a popular uprising against tax rises.
After the Black Death wiped out nearly three-quarters of England’s population in the 1340s, fit working men were scarce, and wealthy landowners had to bid for every labourer’s favour. The Government hurriedly capped wages and banned labouring men from buying luxury food or clothing. Astonishingly, London then raised taxes to pay for the faltering Hundred Years’ War.
When the Reformers sold off the treasures of Durham Cathedral, they sold a priceless piece of Scottish history into oblivion.
The Black Rood of Scotland was an heirloom of the Scottish royal family, captured by the English at the Battle of Neville’s Cross in 1346 and added to the treasures of Durham Abbey. After the sixteenth-century Reformers ransacked the cathedral, the cross disappeared. A generation later, the Rites of Durham recalled some of the wonderful history of the vanished relic in a breathless tale, edited here by John Davies in 1671.
The Despensers ensured that King Edward II never left their sight, but it was what Queen Isabella was doing that should have worried them.
Throughout his calamitous reign, Edward II relied on others to do his thinking for him. First there was Piers Gaveston, who thought seriously about very little. Then there was Hugh Despenser (here named Spencer) and his father, more intelligent but just as ambitious. As for entrusting the affairs of State to his beautiful, neglected wife Isabella, that never occurred to him; but it did occur to Isabella.
Edward II hoped to outshine his famous father by bringing Scotland under the English crown, but Robert the Bruce was ready for him.
In June 1306, Robert I of Scotland was driven from his throne by Edward I of England. Edward’s persistence earned him the name ‘Hammer of the Scots’, but it was Robert’s persistence that told in the end. Tradition says he had learnt it from watching a gutsy spider; but Edward’s death on July 7th, 1307, must have played a part, for Edward II was nothing that his father had been.
Edward II was given the crown of England on condition that he had nothing more to do with Piers Gaveston, and he did not keep his word.
Edward II succeeded Edward I in 1307, and was nothing like his father. Edward ‘Longshanks’ had been a man of determination, firm in governance at home, single-minded in his campaign to bring Wales and Scotland to heel. His son, though ‘fair of body and great of strength’, could govern neither England nor himself.