fyxmll Wimmxi^ JilratJj THE GIFT OF .!^....ii....'ftjUJUV.... h.iB.zin\ )L|ie:.i.u •357 WAS KING EDWARD THE SE(JOND A DEGENERATE? A Consideration of his Reign from that Point of View. By CHALFANT ROBINSON, Ph. D. Reprinted from AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INSANITY Vol. LXVI, No. 3, January, igio EB Cornell University VB Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031444296 WAS KING EDWARD THE SECOND A DEGENERATE? A Consideration of his Reign from that Point of View. By CHALFANT ROBINSON, Ph.D. " A greater ninny than Edward the Second never lived " is the opening sentence of Mackinnon's Life of Edward the Third. Bishop Stubbs in speaking of the death of the king, says : " Thus ended a reign full of tragedy, a life that may be pitied, but [which] affords no ground for sympathy. Strange infatuation, unbridled vindictiveness, recklessness beyond belief, the breach of all natural affection, of love, of honor, and of loyalty are here ; but there is none who stands forth a hero." ^ Again, he describes the reign, outside the great crises, as exceedingly dreary. " There is," he says, " a miserable level of political selfishness which marks without exception every public man ; there is an absence of sincere feeling except in the shape of hatred and revenge." ' Accurate and dispassionate as his estimate is, there still seems to be lacking a needed element to account satisfactorily for the life of the king, and to explain what gave to his reign its peculiar character. This needed element is the diseased brain of the king himself. It is the purpose of the following article to interpret the reign of Edward the Second from this new point of view. For it is one which neither the chroniclers nor modern writers have considered. Indeed, when we adopt Edward's pathological condition as an hypothesis, many apparently trivial, as well as many plainly sig- nificant incidents, related by the chroniclers, assume a scientific character, and in them Bishop Stubbs' estimate of the reign finds an unsuspected explanation. If the annals of the reign are dreary, it is the dreariness of paralysis. If contemptible men are in power, it is because of the impaired vigor of the king's judgment in put- ting them there." For the head is sick and the whole body is full of misery. ' Stubbs, Early Plantagenets, p. 288. ' Introd. to Chrm. Edw. I & II, Vol. II, p. LXXV. ' Indignos quoque et ineptos ad gradus ecclesiasticos promovit, quod post modum sudes in occulos et lancea in latere sibi fuit. Higden's Polychronicon, Vol. VII, p. 298. * This quotation should read, "A more complete ninny than Edward the Second has seldom occupied a throne." 446 WAS KING EDWARD THE SECOND A DEGENERATE? [Jan. In the histories of the time this conclusion finds ample justifica- tion. For the chroniclers in describing the most marked traits of King Edward have unconsciously given us many characteristic symptoms of a disease which medical science recognizes under the general name of degeneracy. That he must be classed as a degen- erate seems beyond doubt. That the character of his reign was largely determined by this fact seems equally clear. That the great men of his realm could so signally fail to give him either con- fidence or loyalty, that he should be dominated first by Pierre Gaveston, and later by the Despensers, that in an access of passion he should butcher his kinsman, the Earl of Lancaster, with many of his followers, that his wife should leave him, and refuse to re- turn to him, and that he should be set aside finally for his son are all circumstances which may be readily explained by the assumption of a diseased condition of his brain. This was a condition to such degree abnormal that it rendered him at times gentle and winning in manner, at others violent in speech and in denunciation, cruel and bloody in action, or apathetic, hysterical or morose, and bestial perhaps, in the revolting character of his vices. From his life history, indeed, it seems reasonably evident that what he did in a large measure he could not help doing, and whether this men- tal condition was an inheritance from his grandfather, Henry the Third, or from his more remote Norman-Angevin ancestors, the effect upon Edward was the same. He was not, of course, an idiot, but the traits of character which attracted the especial atten- tion of the chroniclers point to the conclusion that he was a degenerate.* The term degenerate is used in its scientific sense to designate individuals afflicted with hereditary taint in their physical and mental condition. Among them are idiots and imbeciles, who rep- *This conclusion is based upon a comparison, point by point, of the recognized manifestations of degeneracy with what the records and chron- icles tell us of the king. The discussion of the medical side of the subject is taken mainly from a concise and authoritative article in volume thirteen of La Grande Encyclopedic by Dr. Saury, the French alienist, confirmed by the writings of other scientists, especially Clinical Psychiatry, by A. Ross Diefendorf, M. D., 1907, pp. 518 et seq. The writer is under further obliga- tion to Dr. Diefendorf and to Dr. Charles A. Tuttle, of New Haven, for personal advice upon this article. I9IO] CHALFANT ROBINSON 447 resent the most complete forms of this deterioration, but in the variety of its gradations it is assumed that there may be found all the different stages between idiocy and normal mental develop- ment. For, in spite of apparent distinctions, all the groups exhibit- ing the characteristic symptoms of degeneracy belong to the same family, and all are united by similar manifestations. All have their foundation in anatomical and physiological lesions relating in varying degrees to the cerebro-spinal axis. These lesions may reduce the individual to a mere vegetative existence, that is, to the reflex actions of the spinal column ; or, when the lesion is less ex- tended, sensation and instinct may find place. Nevertheless, the difference is one of degree only. Such considerations in no way discredit the familiar description of Edward as a man of great physique and surpassing muscular strength.' For a vigorous body and great strength may be present with very little mentality. For convenience, the most constant and uniform of the patholog- ical symptoms of degeneracy as they are enumerated by Dr. Saury, are here tabulated and compared with what the king did : (a) In childhood, degenerate children are cruel, perverse, easily angered, violent and indomitable. (a) In his early manhood and throughout his reign, Edward's cruelties were notorious even in a cruel age, and his vicious life a matter of public gossip and indignation.' Easily angered, he apparently could not restrain his passionate outbursts of invective and insult. For example, in 1305, when he was a young man of twenty-two, he broke into the deer park of the Bishop of Chester, and killed some of the deer. When the bishop remonstrated with him, the Lord Edward so outrageously affronted him by his lan- guage and violence of manner that the king, his father, forbade ° " Edward was one of the most powerful men of his realm." Sir Thomas Gray's Scalachronica, p. 45. Trans, by Sir Herbert Maxwell, Glasgow, 1907. "Rex Edwardus .... fuit coi'pore quidem elegans, viribus praestans, sed moribus, ut vulgo dicitur, multum discrepans.'' Chron. Edw. I & II, Vol. II, p. 91. Chron. de Melsa, Vol. II, p. 286. '"The great men had ill-will against him for his cruelty and the de- bauched life which he led." Gray's Scalachronica, p. 70. 29 448 WAS KING EDWARD THE SECOND A DEGENERATE? [Jan. him to appear at court for several months.' When he became king himself, he had the bishop thrown into prison. " The reason for the hostility which the king had cherished for a long time against the bishop, was that during the lifetime of his father, in his stead (the bishop), had jokingly drawn him away from his acts of in- solence, in which he too readily indulged, by gently arguing, by entreating oftentimes, by lightly chiding, and by restraining him from unnecessary expenditures." ° Among other things, the ac- count is interesting because of the picture it gives of the good- natured toleration with which the bishop treated the ungovernable young man, as if for some reason, allowance should be made for him. This attitude perhaps showed too plainly what was in the bishop's mind, for it aroused the quick resentment of the prince. (b) Some degenerates find themselves arrested in their mental development, and are unable to master anything but the most ele- mentary instruction. (b) In spite of the great pains which his father took to train him, Edward could not, or would not learn, and remained an un- educated man.' When he was crowned he took the oath in the French form provided for a king who did not know Latin." (c) Lack of education may find compensation sometimes in the acquirement of a facility for imitation in the mechanical arts. Here the lack of power of reasoned determination directs the inclination of degenerates to automatism. Their easily adopted determina- tions engage them often in indeterminate tasks, nor do they apply their real aptitude except to satisfy their passionate impulses. De- generates, that is to say, may exhibit for a short time a purposeful activity when roused to it by the sting of wounded vanity which in them would be hypersensitive. (c) In June, 1313, a certain fellow had announced that he was the first-born son of the late king, and that the then King Edward was not at all of the royal blood. " When this was rumored abroad," says the Chronicle of Lanercost, " the land wondered a great deal, ' Blaauw, in Vol. II, Sussex Archaeological Society Collections, pp. 81, 84, 86. ' Trokelowe's Annales, p. 63. • T. F. Tout, Political Hist. Eng., Vol. Ill, pp. 236, 237. Same, Diet. Nat. Biog., Article on Edw. II. "Rymer's Foedera, Vol. IV, p. 36, Edit. 1818. 19^0] CHALFANT ROBINSON 449 and was deeply stirred, and some adhered to that false man, espe- cially because it was said that the Lord Edward resembled the elder Edward in no particular. For he gave himself up in private, from childhood, to the art of rowing and of driving horses, to dig- ging ditches and thatching roofs, as it is commonly said ; to work- ing at blacksmithing at night with his associates, and to other mechanical occupations with which it was not fitting that the son of a king should be occupied." " In dealing with the Bridlington prophecy, Wright gives a circumstantial account of a story of the substitution of a carter's son for the king's child by a nurse who had carelessly allowed a hog to wander into the room and to lac- erate her royal charge. In her fright she had made the change to cover what had happened.'' The Scalachronica says that the impostor made his claim when Edward was idling away his time among the ships and sailors, and in other occupations unworthy of the station of a king." The only importance of either story lies in the fact that it could be credited so readily as accounting for his well known lack of kingly dignity. While nothing is more striking in the character of Edward than his instability of purpose, and his inconstancy of occupation, there are examples in his reign of a transient display of real efficiency ; as for instance, his furious attack upon Leeds Castle, the victory which he wins at Burroughbridge, and the vengeance which he takes on the Earl of Lancaster. But these, conformable to our theory, do not spring from any well conceived plan, nor from a clear grasp of what it all meant, for Edward had no comprehension of statecraft. They are occasioned rather by something that had aroused his passion to the highest pitch ; the affront offered to his wife, in one case, the death of Gaveston, in another, and the deri- sion with which the soldiers of Lancaster load him because of the supposed infidelity of Isabella, in the third case." " Chronicon de Lanercost, Bannatyne Club, Edit. Stevenson, p. 236. " He closed a forest with a moat and ditches, and did many things not befitting his station." Continuator of Trivet, p. 18. " Wright's Political Songs, Vol. I, p. 133. " Scalachronica, p. 67. " In October, 1321, Queen Isabella was refused hospitality at Leeds Castle while she was on her way to Canterbury, and six of her followers were killed in attempting to take forcible possession. At this insult, the 450 WAS KING EDWARD THE SECOND A DEGENERATE? [Jan. (d) In adults there will be a tendency to over-indulgence in nerve stimulants, to alcoholic drink, for instance. (d) Edward was much given to liquor." (e) There will be an inclination to vagabondage in degenerates. (e) It was a marked trait of Edward's character to disregard conventional restraints in his occupations and in his actions. In addition to his vagrant occupations already referred to, he journeyed about England drinking and gambling, playing rough jokes on his companions, and accompanied by a lion and fiddlers." (/) Periods of violence may alternate with periods of profound apathy, varying with hysteria and melancholia. (/) From the accounts given of Edward's deportment when he was in captivity, there seems to be some reason for believing that king in his anger not only took the castle after a short seige, but beheaded thirteen of the garrison as an example. He then proceeded with resistless energy against the Earl of Lancaster and his other enemies; and it is at this time that the chronicler sets down as an historical happening the furious manner in which the king upbraids the Bishop of Hereford. Chron. Edw. I & II, Vol. H, p. 264. The Scalachronica furnishes us with this remarkable connection between the king's anger and the execution of Lancaster : " Thomas, Earl of Lan- caster, was beheaded at Pontefract Castle in revenge for Piers Gaveston, and for other acts which he had often and habitually committed against the king, and at the very place where he had once hooted, and had caused others to hoot the king, as he was travelling to York.'' Scalachronica, p. 67. This possibly refers to the time when the followers of Lancaster insulted the king from the walls of Pontefract Castle, by shouting " King Arthur ! " " King Arthur ! " after him as he rode by, a covert reference to Isabella. Pearson's History of England in the 14th Century, pp. 81-82. The Chronicle of Lanercost, in speaking of this period, reflects much the same idea as to the king's mind : " Yet there was furnished another suffi- cient reason, that is, that he (Lancaster) attacked the king of England in his own realm, but those who knew the mind of the king better, said that never for that reason would the earl have been beheaded without delay or deliberation of Parliament, nor so badly treated, but would have been put into prison or sent into exile, except that the other reason took the pre- cedence." Chronicon de Lanercost, p. 244. " Higden's Polychronicon, Vol. VIII, p. 298, which see below. T. F. Tout, Polit. Hist. Eng., Vol. Ill, p. 236. " Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland, Vol. II, Section 1413. T. F. Tout, Diet. Nat. Biog., Article on Edward II. IQIO] CHALFANT ROBINSON 451 either the disease from which he suffered was progressive in its character, or that the misfortunes and hardships, which he was called upon to undergo, brought into prominence symptoms which might otherwise have manifested themselves only occasionally. The hysterical outbursts in the following scenes seem to be entirely pathological in their character, and if they could not have been pre- dicted with certainty, they were at least to have been expected. Isabella, Edward's queen, had landed in England from Flanders with a small army. Thereupon the king had fled westward and had been captured. He vas being kept for the time a prisoner in Kenilworth Castle. The queen's advisers meanwhile had had a Parliament sunynoned at London in December, 1326. This Parlia- ment had sent a commission to the king at Kenilworth demanding that he should present himself before Parliament concerning the disposition of the crown of England. " Which when the king had heard, he refused to yield to them in any way, but rather cursed them roundly" (eis contemptibiliter maledixit) saying that he would not present himself among enemies or rather among traitors." Immediately after this, a committee of the Parliament returned to the king. Some of them, going in advance of the others, deceived him by promising that he should have no less honor after his de- position than before; the rest coming in, now threatened him that if he did not abdicate, the people would pass over his son and elect some one else not of the royal line. " Influenced by the threats of these and by the promises made by the others, the most noble heart of the king, not without sobbings, tears and sighings," says the chronicler, " yielded to the warnings of the bishops." The Bishop of Hereford now brought in the rest of the commission who were arranged in a body in a room of the castle according to their station, where they awaited the coming of the king. "At length the regal majesty," according to the account, "clothed in black, advanc- ing from a secret chamber to present himself to his subjects, know- ing the business upon which they had come, losing his self-control on account of his grief, fell down in a faint. Running to him, the Earl of Leicester and the Bishop of Winchester raised the king in a half conscious condition; when the king had sufficiently re- " Chron. de Lanercost, p. 257. 452 WAS KING EDWARD THE SECOND A DEGENERATE? [J^^l- covered consciousness and strength, the Bishop of Hereford ad- dressed him, setting forth the reason for the coming of the commis- sion . . . ; Hereford added for himself that it was necessary for the king to resign the diadem of the realm to his first-born son, or to suffer that they elect as king some one who seemed to them more fitted for the guardianship of the realm. When he heard these things, weeping and wailing, the king said that it grieved him sorely that the people of the realm should be so exasperated against him." He then resigned the crown. With this scene fresh in his mind, apparently, the next day the Bishop of Hereford preached, and took for his text the verse from Ecclesiasticus, "Rex insipiens perdet populum suum," and laid great stress upon the foolishness of the king, and his follies, and his childish acts, if indeed they ought to be called childish, and upon the many and varied misfortunes which had befallen Eng- land in his time ; and all the people responded with one voice, " We will not have him longer to rule over us." " Evidence of the same kind is furnished in De La More's Vita et Mors. "And so the gracious Lord Edward, lately king, patiently submitting to the loss of his royal crown and of his liberty, for the love of Jesus Christ, crucified for the lowly, lived with his kinsman, Henry, the Earl of Leicester, where, communicating with no one, he lived as a monk and a recluse, depressed to the depths , He was brought forth at night from Kenilworth Castle between his enemies, careless of a life full of woe; after- wards to Corfe Castle, thence to Bristol Castle, .... thence to Berkeley Castle. His torturers treated him with greater savage- ness than wild beasts would have treated him, nor would they allow anyone friendly to him to see him. They compelled him to ride scantily clad ; to go bareheaded ; to keep awake when he wanted to go to sleep ; they prepared food for him not such as he wanted, but " Chron. Edw. I & II, Vol. II, pp. 313-314. The same account of the king's weeping and wailing is given in Walsing- ham's Historia Anglkana, Vol. I, p. 187. " Chron. de Lanercost, p. 257. A month or two previous, at Oxford, the bishop had preached rebellion in the same kind of sermon, from the text: "Caput meum doleo," in which he urged that the afflicted head of the State would have to be removed. Chron. Edw. I & II, Vol. 11, p. 310. IQIO] CHALFANT ROBINSON 453 such as made him sick; they contradicted his every word, and abused him as a crazy man (vescmus). They exhibited themselves contrary to his every wish, in order that worn out by cold, by lack of sleep, by improper food, by fasting, or at least by despondency and weakness, he might die Then was Edward led away toward Berkeley, .... riding closely surrounded by the satraps of Satan; they led him, an example of patience, through the granges of Bristol, where that villainous Degorney, having dared to touch the Christ of God, upon a head long ago annointed with the holy oil, placed a crown made of weeds ; mocking whom, with bitter irony the soldiers called ' Fare forth. Sir King ! ' These evil-doers, fearipg that if they went by the direct way they might meet someone who was friendly to Edward, who with the hand of pity might liberate him, bent to the left through the marsh that ends at the river Severn. Ingenious were the enemies of God in the way in which they disguised Edward so that he might not be known readily. For this reason they arranged the hair of his beard to shave him. Sitting on a kind of mole-hill, the barber brought the king a basin of icy water out of the ditch. To him, and to others insisting that such water was good enough for the occasion, Edward said, ' Whether you want it or whether you don't, we will have hot water for my beard.' And that the truth might follow the promise, he burst into a flood of tears. So William Bishop, who was alive after the great pestilence, told me, for which he confessed that he was sorry, in the hope of divine mercy." " The special feature of Edward's conduct, according to the ac- count of a probable eye-witness, is his Christlike patience. This we should rather interpret to mean his listless apathy to what was going on about him. He remained, when left to himself, sunk in profound melancholy. This patience is so striking and so marked that the chronicler refers to it several times. As he rides forth dejected, he is " careless of a life full of woe." Furthermore, his captors, rough men as they were, would never have treated the royal person of the king, the son of Edward the First, in this barbarous manner if they had not thought from his appearance and actions that he was a poor witless fool beneath contempt or =° Chron. Edw. I & II, Vol. II, p. 314- 454 WAS KING EDWARD THE SECOND A DEGENERATE? [J^H- pity. Indeed, as the witness says, " They abused him as a crazy man." Then badgered and hectored by the soldiers, when they insist upon shaving him with icy ditch water, he bursts into a flood of hysterical tears. These incidents all seem to be significant of the king's mental disorder. (g) Aboulism, or the absence of will-power, is a very common manifestation of degeneracy. This condition is often so pro- nounced in a degenerate individual that the will of another may be substituted for his own, and a complete ascendency gained over it. (g) Very little need be adduced to illustrate this best known aspect of Edward's reign. He was constantly under the dominion of a strong mind. This fact is so familiar, and is so frequently attested by the chroniclers, that it is necessary to refer only to the virtual abdication of his power in favor of Gaveston, and of the Despensers. They carried their influence so far that they decided most matters for him, and established a control over his will that was very nearly absolute. (h) There may be overpowering motor impulses. (h) Lack of restraint in Edward caused him to give way many times to acts of physical violence.'^ (i) Among degenerates, many times, there will be found an exaggerated love of animals. (i) From the letters which Edward, or his clerk, writes while he is under the displeasure of his father, in 1305, we find the best evidence that he was extremely fond of both horses and dogs, and that he gave much time to caring for them and to breeding them.'' (/) There will be various manifestations of sexual perversion. (}) In the chronicles there are frequent references to unpleas- ant suspicions as to the king's private life, but the proof of the fact is doubtful. Yet his own times believed that he was guilty of unnatural vice, and it was a matter of common report in Europe. The main support which this wide-spread belief rests upon is as follows : When the king and queen were crowned at London he so openly preferred the society of Gaveston to that of his newly ^ Higden's Polychronicon, Vol. VIII, p. 298. '^ Blaauw, Sussex Archaeological Society Collections, Vol. II, pp. 81, 84, 86. Ninth Report of the Deputy Keeper of Records, Appen. II, pp. 246-249. IPIO] CHALFANT ROBINSON 455 married bride that it almost broke up the coronation. The queen's uncles were greatly outraged, and they carried their suspicions back to their king, while all London murmured at the scandal." The statement made by Walsingham, referring to a later time, makes it clear that Edward's infatuation for Gaveston passed the bounds of public decency." Its implication seems to be confirmed by Higden's sinister reference to Gaveston's recall in 1307."' More significant still is Isabella's charge against Hugh Despenser, after she had gone to France."' The language used is of such character as to leave no possible doubt as to her exact meaning. Further, the public advertisement which she gave to her belief, when by her command Qespenser was horribly mutilated at his execution, is responsible for much of the later popular belief in the king's guilt." Whether there was ever any material basis for what ap- pears in these contemporary accounts it is fortunately not neces- sary to prove. Enough is there to show that Edward had ab- normal tendencies of the kind, and for our purpose this is sufficient as indicating a degenerate condition. '""In cujus coronatione populus terrae et magnates murmuraverunt vehementer contra praedictum Petrum, et omnino voluerunt eum suo comitatu privari, rege pertinacissime resistente, et crevit istud murmur de die in diem, et ora et aures omnium occupavit, nee fuit qui de rege vel de Petro aliquid boni loqueretur." Chron. de Lanercost, p. 211. "".... vivente Petro, esse non poterit pax in regno, nee rex abundare thesauro, vel regina gaudere regis amore debito." Walsingham, Historia Anglicana, Vol. I, p. 129. ® " Qui statim revocavit amasium suum Petrum de Gavestoun.'' Higden's Polychronicon, Vol. VIII, p. 296. " Ejusque contemplatione Isabellam reginam neglexit . . . . " Knighton, Vol. I, S08. ""Ego," inquit (Isabella), "sentiens, quod matrimonium sit viri et mulieris conjuncto, individuam vitae consuetudinem retinens, mediumque esse qui inter maritum meum et me hujusmodi vinculum nititur dividere; protestor me nolle redire donee auferatur meduis ille, sed exuta veste nuptiali, viduitatis et luctus vestes assumam donee de hujusmodi Phariseao viderim ultionem." Chron. Edw. I & IT, Vol. II, p. 287. Auctore Malmesb. "Froissart's Chronicles. Translated by Thomas Johnes, Esq., Vol. I, p. 13. The unqualified statement made in the Chronica de Melsa, written more than fifty years after the king's death, cannot be accepted as proof of more than the general opinion. " Ipse quidem Edwardus in vitio Sodomico nimium delectabat." Melsa, Vol. II, p. 355- 456 WAS KING EDWARD THE SECOND A DEGENERATE? [Jan. Finally, inasmuch as Edward's resolution was plastic material in the hands of anyone to whom he had given his affection, there is in their common knowledge of the king's mental condition a much more satisfactory explanation of Isabella's inveterate hatred of Gaveston and the Despensers than in the avarice with which she is generally credited in the chronicles. " For," comments Dr. Saury, " bom with this taint, in the constant struggle since child- hood against the exigencies of society, the greater part of these unfortunates may be easily pushed into transgression and crime. Repression may lead them to betrayal of confidence, drunkenness, vagabondage, and debauchery." In addition to the scattered references to the fact that there is something very unusual about Edward, which are strewn here and there through the various chronicles, there is a remarkable sum- mary of many of the pathological symptoms already referred to, in Higden's Polychronicon. This writer shows a surprising de- gree of scientific accuracy in cataloging several of the essential traits of degeneracy. He says of the king : " Not caring to asso- ciate with the nobles, he clave to buffoons, singers, actors, grooms, laborers, rowers, sailors, and other mechanics, indulging in drink, readily betraying secrets, striking bystanders on light occasions, following rather the advice of someone else than his own; lavish in giving, magnificent in entertaining, voluable in speech, varied in employments, unfortunate against his enemies, harsh towards his own men. He was most affectionately disposed toward one of his familiars, whom he cherished to the highest degree, made rich, exalted, and honored. Whence came opprobrium to the king loving, obloquy to the one loved, scandal to the people, and detri- ment to the realm." "* The singular agreement between Higden's description of Edward and what has been said of the recognized symptoms of degeneracy does not need emphasis. A description has now been given of the significant pathological aspects of King Edward's case : Of his cruelty ; his violence in lan- guage and action ; his tendency to strike upon slight provocation ; his talent for imitation in the mechanical arts; his overindul- gence in liquor ; his tendency to vagabondage ; his apathy and mel- ancholia ; his hysterical outbursts ; his lack of will power ; his ex- " Higden's Polychronicon, Vol. VIII, p. 298. 19^0] CHALFANT ROBINSON 457 aggerated love of animals; and finally his inclination to sexual perversion. Every one of these has a definite scientific value in arriving at a conclusion. Yet no one of them would show anything more than that the king was somewhat eccentric. Indeed, very little weight could be attached to an argument based on the pres- ence of a single abnormal trait, or two, or three, or four even, but when the list of characteristic features of degeneracy grows to many more, each strengthening the impression produced by the others, their cumulative force makes it difficult to avoid the con- clusion that Edward was a degenerate. If this conclusion be accepted, that Edward did not represent normal mental development, we should expect to find proof of the fact wherever the character of the king enters into the events of his reign as an element of importance. Such is quite the case. There are two crises in his history. One was when the govern- ment was taken out of his hand by the barons ; the other was when the departure of his wife, Isabella, for France brought about his deposition and death. To each of these crises the suggested in- terpretation of the reign applies equally well. The entire attitude assumed toward him by the barons in 131 1- 12 in taking away from him the right to give away property, to raise taxes, to appoint the officers of his own household, and in limiting him in other ways ^ shows very plainly that they did not think Edward competent to manage his own property, much less to govern the State. The whole thing was so obvious that the king himself in one of his frequent passions broke out that they were treating him like a fool.™ In his simplicity he reflected exactly the attitude of the barons toward him. He was to them a weak- minded young man who could not be trusted with any kind of responsibility. There is nothing clearer in the accounts of his reign than the fact that Edward and his property were soon parted."' " When there ^° Statutes of the Realm, Vol. I. The Ordinances, pp. 157-168. " "Ad haec rex ultra modum commotus quod nee unum familiarem juxta proprium votum retinere sibi liceret, sed sicut providetur fatuo, totius do- mus suae ordinati'o ex alieno dependeret arbitrio . . . . " Chron. Edw. I & II. p. 174. "■ We find scattered through his household accounts entries, taken at random, like the following: To Sir Eubulo de Montibus for first bringing 4S8 WAS KING EDWARD THE SECOND A DEGENERATE? [Jan. was phenomenal scarcity of grain," says Knighton, " under color of repelling the Scots, with the Pope's permission, there was col- lected a vast quantity of supplies for the royal fisc, but it was wantonly wasted by the royal insolence." "" He gave away so much that he did not have enough to pay for the regular running ex- penses of his household, and the queen was so straitened that she had to complain to her father, the King of France." Not alone to Gaveston did he give vast estates ; others also profited by the king's infirmity. The Lady de Vescy, to whose brother Edward had given the. Isle of Man, was banished from the court by the ordi- nances, because " The Lady de Vescy hath procured the king to give to Sir Henry Beaumont, her brother, and to others, lands, franchises, and baliwicks, to the damage and dishonor of the king, and open disherison of the crown, and also procured to be sent out letters under the privy seal against the law and intent of the king." '' The resources of the State and affairs of the govern- ment were in such condition of riotous confusion under the king's mismanagement, that nothing was left for the barons to do but to take the government out of his hands. The crisis which was brought upon England by the queen's de- parture was in part due to the execution of the Earl of Lancaster in 1322. " The hatred against Sir Hugh Spenser was increased by this deed," says Froissart, " particularly that of the queen and of the Earl of Kent, the brother of the king; which when Hugh perceived, he fomented such discord between the king and the queen that the king would not see the queen nor come to any place where she was. This quarrel lasted some time; when the queen the news to the king of the happy delivery of the queen of her son John at Eltham, £100 (roughly, the price of about 200 head of cattle). Archaeolo- gia XVII, pp. 318-345. There is in his lavish giving, already spoken of by Higden, a very satis- factory illustration of Edward's mental incapacity. His defective judgment, as it appears in this phase of his character, furnishes an additional proof of degeneracy. ^' Knighton's Chronicon, Vol. I, p. 407. "■* " . . . . et tantum expilavit regem, ut non haberet unde solveret ex- pensa consueta vel necessaria domuo suae sed regina tantum rebus necessarius artabatur, ut regi franciae, patri suo, lachrymabiliter quereretur se honore debito destitutam.'' Walsingham, Hist. AngL, Vol. I, p. 125. '' Ordinance XXIII, Stat. Realm, Vol. I, p. 163. I9IO] CHALFANT ROBINSON 459 and the Earl of Kent were secretly informed that if they did not speedily quit the court they would repent it, for Sir Hugh was endeavoring to stir up mischief against them." " It is quite prob- able that the queen and the king's brother knew better than anyone else the abnormal character of the king's mind, and how easily it was played upon by suggestion, and they gave to Despenser the credit which he deserved for pushing the king into his worst pas- sions." Just what furnished the basis for the quarrel between the king and the queen, however, we do not know. It may have been the queen's extravagance,'' but it is much more likely that when the king returned from the shambles of Pontefract Castle he was re- minded by Despenser that Isabella, too, had been an occasion for the insults which he had just avenged. In that case he probably met her upbraiding with his accustomed unrestrained violence and with such degree of fury that she feared for her life, as she after- ward claimed.™ Despenser was able to keep alive for a long time, at least, the distrust which the king had been made to feel for the queen. For if Isabella in her anger or her fear wrote to her brother, the King of France, at this time of her plan to leave Eng- land, we have an explanation of the sudden confiscation of her lands by the king on the pretext that they were most exposed to French attack." Despenser, indeed, would be glad to point out to the king that Isabella's correspondence was in all probability of a treasonable nature. That the king's action was determined by his suspicions of what the queen might have been doing is evident from the Lanercost account : " Nevertheless there were other reasons why the queen desired to go to France. For Sir Hugh Despenser, Junior, who led the King of England in everything which he did, was trying to secure a divorce in the papal court between the king and the queen, .... they persuaded the king that he should take into his own hands the income and lands which he had given the " Froissart's Chromcles, Vol. I, p. 6. "".... et ibi in vindictam mortis Petri de Gaverstoun, quem comes fecerat decollari, ad suggestionem aemulorum comitis, et maxime Domini Hugonis Dispensatoris, junoiris . . ." Chron. de Lanercost, p. 244. =• Chron. Edw. I & II, Vol. II, p. 306. " See below her letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury. *° Rymer's Foedera, Vol. IV, p. 596. 460 WAS KING EDWARD THE SECOND A DEGENERATE? [Jan. queen, and to give her for herself and her whole court an allow- ance of twenty shillings a day, and to remove her own servants and particular friends from her ; so far that the wife of the said Hugh was assigned to the queen as a chaperone, and carried her seal, nor could she write a letter to anyone without the espionage of Lady Despenser; whereupon the lady queen was greatly enraged, and for securing revenge or satisfaction wished to visit her brother, the King of France." " While the attempt on the part of Hugh to secure a divorce, and the removal of her servants and friends, and the espionage upon whatever she wrote might seem to point equally to some kind of clandestine correspondence, with Mortimer possibly, yet the con- fiscation of her lands and castles, and the substitution of the king's men for those of the queen's as garrisons point more directly to sus- pected treasonable dealings with France as the best explanation of the facts. At any rate, Isabella seized the occasion that was furn- ished by the negotiations for peace between her husband and her brother, and guided probably by the craft of the Bishop of Here- ford she offered herself as an emissary, and by her blandishments persuaded the king to send her to France. Once there she de- layed the conclusion of a final peace, and then sent word to the king that she was not coming back at all so long as the Despensers were in power, for she was afraid of the harm which Hugh De- spencer would do her if she remained in England. When this news reached Edward he was taken completely by surprise. The queen had dissembled so well her hatred for De- spenser and her fear of the king that he had seen evidence of noth- ing but love and peace. No one told him what was going on, and he did not have the penetration to discern it for himself. With characteristic want of dignity, and in absolute simplicity, the king took his domestic troubles before Parliament. He was conscious apparently only that his wife had left him, and quite guiltless of any suspicion that it might have offended her to have had her lands taken away, and to have been threatened with divorce. Ignorant likewise that she had been terrified by his furious outbursts of pas- sion, he finds the whole affair an impenetrable mystery, and asks Parliament to aid him in getting his wife to come back. After some " Chron. de Lanercost, p. 254. IQIOl CHALFANT ROBINSON 461 discussion, the bishops were directed to write to her in the hope that they might persuade her to return. The letter which she writes in reply to the Archbishop of Canterbury, explaining her prolonged absence and her refusal to return, contains the definite and very significant statement that the reason she does not return is that she is in fear of her life from the king." At the time, no one thought that she was in danger of her life from Hugh Despenser. Such charge is absent from the articles of indictment in his death warrant " and it would certainly have been among them if there had been any general belief in its ex- istence inasmuch as all the other charges against him are definitely listed in that instrument. Yet it is safe to say that few people at court were ignorant of the ill-will which Despenser bore the queen. With the king already exasperated against her, Isabella might well fear that Despenser, having the king's confidence, might easily in- cite against her Edward's notorious violence. Thus while the queen had good cause to hate and to distrust Despenser, she had no reason to fear that her life was in danger from him, but she used that distrust in her letters to cover her real fear of her husband. The king in his letters to her, however, roughly brushed aside what he considered this fabrication in re- gard to Hugh, although he admitted that there might have been " " Reverend Father in God, we have diligently examined your letters, in which you require us that we return to the company of our very dear and very sweet lord and friend, and you signify that Sir Hugh Despenser is not hostile to us, but wishes us well, just as you say. At this we marvel as much as we can, for you as well as anyone ought not to believe that we left the company of our said lord without very great and justifiable cause, and that was, to escape the peril of our body, and the doubt which we had of the said Hugh, who had control of our lord and his entire kingdom, and, that he wished to dishonor us by means of his powers, we have been cer- tain and have so well proved, that we have dissimulated a long time to escape the danger. And certainly we desire above everything else after God and the salvation of our soul to be in the company of our said lord and to die with him. So we pray you as much as we may, that you take for an excuse that we cannot do as you require us in the matter you ask, for in no manner can we return to the company of our lord without putting ourselves in peril of death, through which we are in greater trouble than we may write." Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury from Queen Isabella. Twysden's Decern Scriptores, 2766. (French.) " Chron. Edw. I & 11, pp. 87-89, Vol. II. Bridlington, Auctor. 462 WAS KING EDWARD THE SECOND A DEGENERATE? [J^n. cause for offense in his own conduct, and peremptorily ordered her to come home." Besides the letter from the king to Isabella, there are two others touching upon the same point. One is from Edward to the King of France." The other is from Edward to the Pope." In different ways they bear out the same idea. It may be altogether reasonable to suppose that Isabella mis- represented the whole thing, as it is generally thought she did, and " " Madame, many times we have commanded you, as well before the homage as since, for the great desire which we have that you should be with us, and the great distress because of your very long absence, under- standing also that during it you have been in great mischief, that you should come to us with all haste, laying aside all excuses. Before the homage you excused yourself, indeed, because of the progress of the busi- ness, and now by your letters and through the Bishop of Winchester you send us word that you are not coming at all on account of the fear and doubt which you have of Hugh Despenser. At which I marvel as much as possible, the more as you in past time conducted yourself toward him and he toward you in our presence in such a friendly fashion, and then upon your departure by special promises, looks, and other evidences of friendly regard, and lastly by your very especial letters sent to him at a late date, which he showed to us. " And surely, Madame, we know of a truth and you know also, that he showed toward you every honor that he could, nor has there been shown to you at any time any villainy, since you entered our company, by any aid or abetting, unless possibly once, on your own account, if you will remem- ber, we did address to you some words of reproof, privately enough, as you say, without other harshness Wherefore we command and charge you to the utmost of our power, that ceasing all these reasons and made-up excuses, and leaving everything else, you come to us with all speed " Rymer's Foedera, Vol. IV, p. 615. (French.) " In a letter to the king of France, written March 18, 1326, Edward says : " . . . . but truly, dear brother, we perceive well enough and you can as well, and all men can, that she does not love us at all as she ought to love her husband, and that the reason which she alleges concerning our said nephew (Hugh Despenser) is made up and not at all the real reason why she left us; . . . ." Rymer's Foedera, Vol. IV, p. 622. (French.) "In the letter to the Pope, April 15, 1326, the king says: " .... in France it was openly said that we had to banish our wife and son from the realm of England, and that they had asked for that reason that we should send certain envoys to the land of France to make a treaty for the safety there of our wife, as she could not remain with us in England without danger of bodily harm; . . . ." Rymer's Foedera, Vol. IV, p. 625. (French.) I9IO] CHALFANT ROBINSON 463 that she was perfectly safe in England. It is quite allowable to believe that it was only her desire to be even with Hugh Despenser and his wife, as well as to join Mortimer in France, that made her leave Edward. Such motives did undoubtedly exist, and must be given consideration, but they do not weaken in any way the con- clusion that because of his malady, which expressed itself at times in outbursts of violence, Isabella did not feel safe, and could not live with her husband, and that so long as he was under the con- trol of Despenser, the king's ungovernable passion might at any time be aroused against her. This view, which seems to harmonize best with the known facts, has a remarkable confirmation in the defense which Adam Orleton, Bishop of Hereford, makes in Par- liament against the charges with which he was later confronted on account of the part which he took in the deposition of the king. The third of the formal charges made against him is thus quoted by Adam : " That by my false and treacherous words and asser- tions made at Wallingford to the Lady Queen, married to our Lord the King, such fear was aroused that she did not dare to go to the king, heir husband, upon which account (cujus occasione) a lawful impediment to marriage as well as to procreation existed in the covenant and in the sacrament." "I declare, indeed," says he, " that when the said Isabella was staying at Wallingford with the present king, her son, she heard certain gossip as to why she did not personally go to her husband ; . . . . Upon me, because I was then at Hereford, it was enjoined that I should publicly set forth, for preserving her good name and for defending her against gos- sip of this kind, certain causes, among which the savageness of the king, which had often been exhibited, could, and ought to be feared Afterwards, when I was out of the kingdom, on account of the things that were being said as before, the queen had assembled the prelates, earls, barons and nobles of the realm in great numbers; where after diligent consideration of this habit (hoc habitum) it was unanimously decided and advice given the queen that they would in no way permit her to go to the king. .... All these things are to that degree public and notorious in the realm of England that no ground exists for fabrication Besides this the said lady the queen for a long time before the said charge while she was in France, had a well justified fear of the savageness (saevitia) of her husband. Nor did the cause for fear 30 464 WAS KING EDWARD THE SECOND A DEGENERATE? [Jan. cease with the death of Hugh Despenser, whom the king loved' with an immoderate and inordinate love, and on account of it rather was the savageness of the king increased for avenging his death." " Some additional light is thrown on Edward's condition by the attitude which the queen assumes toward him on one or two other occasions. While the king was still in prison, according to Wals- ingham, " The queen, indeed, sent him soft garments and caressing letters, yet would not see him, pretending that the community of the realm would not permit it. And he had his expenses provided to the extent of 100 marks a month." " Again Walsingham says : " When, moreover, it was announced to the queen that her son had been elected king and her husband deposed, full of grief, as it seemed to outside appearances, the queen almost lost her mind. Edward, also, her son, moved by his mother's grief, swore that he never would accept the crown so long as his father was unwilling." And further, " On February 2, Edward was crowned at West- minster by the archbishop; the queen, so far as one could judge from her countenance manifesting great grief." " Even if the king's malady made it impossible for Isabella to return to him, and in spite of her well attested intimacy with Mortimer, she could still pity Edward's misfortune and even the degradation which she had been partly responsible for bringing upon him. To her he was still her husband, and an object of compassion. Yale University, New Haven, Conn. " Adam Orleton's Defense. Twysden's Decern Scriptores, 2766. " Walsingham's Hist. Angl, Vol. I, p. 185. " Same, p. 188. arW9490 Cornell University Library ,. 3 1924 031 444 296 olin,anx