Isabella and the Strange Death of Edward II Read Online Free PDF Page B

or in the wild remote countryside beyond, is never explained. True, Mortimer’s henchmen were in Dublin. English traders called there, but it was safer than Corfe. Moreover, Edward II had never been to Ireland or surrounded himself with Irish princes, noblemen or merchants. So who would recognize the deposed King, who was supposed to be dead and buried in Gloucester?
    Edward II’s supposed flight back to the very busy English port of Sandwich, a place frequented by diplomatic envoys from the English court, merchants, burgesses, was even more improbable. The route he was then reported to have followed is also highly suspicious. Edward landed at the French port of Sluys and travelled through Normandy, the only other part of France, as well as Gascony, whereEdward might have been recognized. English influence was particularly strong in Normandy because of its possession of the neighbouring counties of Ponthieu and Montreuil. Edward II had been married at Boulogne sur Mer in Normandy and there were certainly other less dangerous routes he could have taken: he had visited northern France and journeyed to Paris on at least two other occasions, in 1313 and 1320.
    According to Fieschi, Edward reached the papal court of Avignon during the late autumn of 1331, but this time he was alone. His mysterious liberator, the man to whom he owed his life has abruptly disappeared, without any reference to his fate. The last mention of this hero of the hour was when he accompanied Edward to Ireland. The deposed King chose a place where rumours about his supposed escape were rife, thanks to Kent’s conspiracy and the exchange of sharply worded letters between Isabella and Pope John XXII. This cunning old pope had died in 1334 so he, too, like all the others mentioned in this letter, had gone to the grave supposedly carrying the secret with them. Edward III would therefore be unable to verify Fieschi’s story. Moreover, the Italian priest cunningly depicts Pope John XXII as acting in great secrecy, meeting the deposed King ‘in camera’ and acting as host for a mere fifteen days. If Edward III had made inquiries at Avignon about the veracity of Fieschi’s story, the papal court would have been unable to answer, whilst Fieschi could point to the secrecy Pope John XXII had thrown over this matter.
    Finally, after various deliberations covering a wide range of subjects, after receiving permission to depart [licencia] he went to Paris, from Paris to Brabant andfrom Brabant to Cologne to see the Three Kings and offer his devotions.
    Fieschi describes Edward leaving Avignon and, once again, placing himself in great danger. He journeyed to Paris, then on to Brabant and across into Germany to visit the famous shrine of the Three Kings at Cologne. Why the deposed King should do this is not explained. If Edward was frightened of being recognized in Ireland then Paris and Brabant were very dangerous places. He could have been recognized in the French capital by his wife’s kinsmen, and in Brabant English influence was dominant through the marriage alliances of his kinswomen as well as trade links. In those dangerous years of 1331 to 1336, England and France teetered on the verge of outright war: an Englishman, disguised as a hermit, would have certainly excited suspicion and attracted the attention of the authorities. Nor, in Edward II’s life, is there any indication of any special devotion on his part to the shrine of the Three Kings at Cologne. His visit there is not explained nor why the supposedly royal hermit was travelling across northern Europe at the very time his own son and English troops were there.
    After leaving Cologne, he crossed Germany and reached Milan in Lombardy and in Milan he entered a certain hermitage of the castle Milasci [Melazzo] where he remained for two and a half years.
    If Edward II had left Ireland in December 1330 and travelled through France and Germany, his peregrinationsthrough northern Europe, before he reached