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Hugh Despenser | |
|---|---|
| 1st Baron Despenser | |
 Despenser in theFounders and Benefactors Book ofTewkesbury Abbey, c. 1525; his familyarms ofQuarterly 1st & 4th: Argent; 2nd & 3rd: Gules fretty or, over all a ribbon sable are at the bottom left | |
| Tenure | 1314–1326 |
| Predecessor | none |
| Successor | Hugh Despenser, 2nd Baron Despenser |
| Other names | the Younger Despenser[1] |
| Known for | Favourite ofEdward II |
| Born | c. 1287 – c. 1289[2][3] |
| Died | 24 November 1326 (aged 36–39) Hereford, Herefordshire, Kingdom of England |
| Cause of death | Hanged, drawn and quartered |
| Buried | |
| Wars and battles | |
| Spouse | |
| Issue |
|
| Father | Hugh Despenser (the Elder) |
| Mother | Isabel Beauchamp |
Hugh Despenser, 1st Baron Despenser (also known as theYounger Despenser; c. 1287/1289 – 24 November 1326) was an Englishnobleman and royalfavourite. He was the son and heir ofHugh Despenser, Earl of Winchester (the Elder Despenser) and his wifeIsabel Beauchamp, daughter ofWilliam Beauchamp, 9th Earl of Warwick.[4] Despenser rose to national prominence aschamberlain of the royal household and a close favourite ofEdward II of England. His influence at court earned him many enemies among the English nobility. After the overthrow of Edward II, Despenser was charged withhigh treason and ultimatelyhanged, drawn and quartered.
Despenser the Younger rose to becomeChamberlain of the royal household, a position of significant influence as one of King Edward II’s closest advisors. In that role he managed the king’s domestic finances and court affairs, gaining favour and power at court.[5] In 1317 he claimed theLordship of Glamorgan through his marriage toEleanor de Clare, daughter ofGilbert de Clare, 7th Earl of Gloucester, a vast Anglo‑Welsh estate inherited after her brother’s death, which made him one of the wealthiestmagnates insouth Wales.[6] Through royal favour and marriage alliances he then gained additional lands in theWelsh Marches and in England.[5]
At various times he wasknight ofHanley Castle inWorcestershire and served asConstable ofOdiham Castle.[5] He was also appointedKeeper ofBristol Castle,Portchester Castle, andDryslwyn Castle, and oversaw the surrounding towns and theCantref Mawr region inCarmarthenshire.[5] In Wales his authority extended across his lordship’s estates, and in England he was entrusted with themanors and lands ofBrecknock,Hay andCantref Selyf, as well asHuntington inHerefordshire.[7]
Despenser was additionally grantedWallingford Castle inBerkshire, a royalfortress that had previously been held for life byQueen Isabella of France, demonstrating the extraordinary royal confidence he enjoyed.[8]
In May 1306, Despenser was knighted at theFeast of the Swans atWestminster Abbey alongside Prince Edward, and in that summer he married Eleanor de Clare, daughter of powerful noble Gilbert de Clare, andJoan of Acre. Eleanor's grandfather,Edward I, had owed the elder Despenser 2,000marks, a debt which the marriage settled. When Eleanor's brother,Gilbert, was killed in 1314 at theBattle of Bannockburn, she unexpectedly became one of the three co-heiresses to the richGloucester earldom, and in her right, Hugh inheritedGlamorgan and other properties.[9] In just a few years Hugh went from a landless knight to one of the wealthiest magnates in the kingdom.
Eleanor was also the niece of the new king, Edward II of England, and this connection brought Despenser closer to the English royal court. He joined the baronial opposition toPiers Gaveston, the king's favourite (and Despenser's brother-in-law, through Gaveston's marriage to Eleanor's sisterMargaret). Eager for power and wealth, Despenser seizedTonbridge Castle in 1315, afterhis brother-in-law's death under the misapprehension that it belonged to his mother-in-law; he relinquished it on discovering that the rightful owner was, in fact, theArchbishop of Canterbury.[10] He was accused of havingLlywelyn Bren, aWelsh hostage in his custody, hanged, drawn and quartered on his own authority in 1318, despite the fact that Llywelyn had been "promised leniency"[11] byRoger Mortimer and theearl of Hereford. However, this may actually have been done "at the command of the king himself",[11] with Despenser being blamed because Mortimer and Hereford "could not publicly demonstrate their anger at"[11] King Edward.
Eleanor and Hugh had nine children who survived infancy:
Despenser became royal chamberlain in 1318. As a royalcourtier, he manoeuvred into the affections of King Edward, displacing the previous favourite,Roger d'Amory. This came much to the dismay of the baronage as they saw him both taking their rightful places at court at best, and at worst being the new, worseGaveston. By 1320 his greed was running free. He also supposedly vowed revenge on Roger Mortimer, becauseMortimer's grandfather had killedhis own. By 1321, he had earned many enemies in every stratum of society, from Queen Isabella in France, to the barons, to the common people. There was even aplot to kill Despenser by sticking his wax likeness with pins.
Finally the baronstook action against King Edward and, at the beseeching of Queen Isabella, forced Despenser and his father into exile in August 1321. However, Edward's intent to summon them back to England was no secret. The king rallied support after an attack against Isabella's party atLeeds Castle, an event possibly orchestrated.[13] Early in the following year, with Mortimer's barons busy putting down uprisings in their lands,[14] the Despensers were able to return. Edward, with the Despensers backing him once more, was able to crush the rebellion, securing first Mortimer's surrender and then that of theearl of Lancaster, who was subsequently executed.
King Edward quickly reinstated Despenser as royal favourite. The period from the Despensers' return from exile until the end of Edward II's reign was a time of uncertainty in England. With the main baronial opposition leaderless and weak, having been defeated at theBattle of Boroughbridge, and Edward willing to let them do as they pleased, the Despensers were left unchecked. This maladministration caused hostile feeling for them and, by extension, Edward II. Ultimately, a year after his surrender and imprisonment, Mortimer escaped to France, where he began organizing a new rebellion.
Like his father, the younger Despenser was accused of widespread criminality. Amongst other examples, Despenser seized the Welsh lands of his wife's inheritance while ignoring the claims of his two brothers-in-law. He further cheated his sister-in-lawElizabeth de Clare out ofGower andUsk, and forcedAlice de Lacy, 4th Countess of Lincoln, to give up her lands to him. Both he and his father were accused of murdering Llywelyn Bren in 1318 while the Welshman was being held hostage in what was characterised by contemporaries as anextrajudicial killing,[15] "conspiring together to exercise a jurisdiction which they could not lawfully have".[16] During his exile, Despenser spent a period of time as apirate in theEnglish Channel, "a sea monster, lying in wait for merchants as they crossed the sea".[17] At his makeshift trial, he would be accused "of robbing two great ships to the value of £60,000 'to the great dishonour of the king and the realm and to the great danger of English merchants in foreign countries'".[18] He also had Sir William Cokerell "arrested and imprisoned"[11] in theTower of London and extorted £100 from him.[19]
The 14th-century court historianJean Froissart wrote that "he was a sodomite", andAdam Orleton, theBishop of Winchester, also levelled the accusation at him (although Orleton's accusation came when he was defending himself from having claimed the same of King Edward). According to Froissart, Despenser's penis was severed and burned athis execution as a punishment for hissodomy andheresy.[20] In 1326, as Isabella and Mortimer invaded, Orleton gave a sermon in which he publicly denounced Edward, who had fled with Despenser, as a sodomite. The annals ofNewenham Abbey in Devon recorded, "the king and his husband" fled toWales.[21]
Queen Isabella had a special dislike for Despenser. While Isabella was in France to negotiate between her husband and the French king, she formed an alliance with Roger Mortimer and began planning an invasion of England, which ultimately came to fruition in September 1326. Their forces numbered only about 1,500 mercenaries to begin with, but the majority of the nobility rallied to them throughout September and October, preferring to stand with them rather than Edward and the hated Despensers.[4]
The Despensers fled west with the King, with a sizeable sum from the treasury; however, the escape was unsuccessful. Separated from the elder Despenser, the King and the younger Despenser were deserted by most of their followers and were captured nearNeath in mid-November. King Edward was imprisoned and laterforced to abdicate in favour of his sonEdward III. The elder Despenser was hanged and then beheaded at Bristol on 27 October 1326, and the younger Despenser was brought to trial.[4]
Anticipating that he would receive no mercy, Despenser tried to starve himself before his trial,[22] but he was unsuccessful. "In order to legalise the process against him the tribunal that had carried out the judgement on the elder Despenser was reconvened. Roger [Mortimer], the Earls ofLancaster,Kent andNorfolk, andThomas Wake andWilliam Trussell"[22] presided.
Despenser was tried on 24 November 1326, taken to the market square ofHereford, before Mortimer, Isabella and the Lancastrian lords. He was accompanied by formerLord Chancellor of EnglandRobert Baldock, and by one of his vassals, Simon de Reading, "who had been so presumptuous as to insult the queen and to take the lands of [Mortimer's] follower John Wyard",[23] with de Reading being "tried alongside him".[24] A large crowd of people "had gathered with trumpets and drums, ready to pull Despenser apart with their bare hands if need be."[22] The prisoners were crowned withnettles to symbolise the "crime of accroaching royal power",[25] while their surcoats bore "their coats of arms reversed",[22] to proclaim their "treachery".[25] Despenser's tunic bore a Latin verse from theOld Testament:Quid gloriaris in malicia qui potens es in iniquitate? ('Why do you glory in malice, you who are mighty in iniquity?')[25][26] He was dragged to the ground by the crowd, who "stripped off his clothes and scrawled biblical slogans on his skin"[25] which denounced "arrogance and evil".[22]
The tribunal's "judgement was thorough, extensive and uncompromising. Only the sentence was in doubt. The Lancastrians wanted Despenser to be sentenced and beheaded at one of his own castles, in the same way that the earl of Lancaster had died atPontefract in 1322."[22] HistorianIan Mortimer argues that Mortimer, on the other hand, "wanted to ensure that Despenser suffered a death every bit as horrific"[27] as that endured by Llywelyn Bren (although his role in Llywelyn's execution was not mentioned in the extensive list of charges against him), while Queen Isabella "wanted him executed in London. The number of aggrieved parties meant that Despenser was certain to be quartered: every lord wanted a piece to show their followers that they had exacted revenge."[22]
Trussell declared that he had been "ajudged a traitor and an enemy of the realm",[28] and read out the "exhaustingly long"[24] list of charges against him, including:
breaking the terms of exile, breachingMagna Carta and theOrdinances of 1311, killing, imprisoning and tyrannizing the great and good of the realm, causing the king to fight in Scotland at the cost of thousands of men's lives, usurping royal authority and attempting to fund the destruction of Queen Isabella and her son Duke Edward while they were in France.[24]
Despenser was condemned to death. For the crime of theft, he was sentenced to hanging, while his treason was to be punished by drawing and quartering.[29] He was subsequently "roped to four horses – not just the usual two – and dragged through the city to the walls of his own castle"[29] to "a specially made 50-foot gallows, designed to make punishment visible to everyone in the town."[24] There he was hanged, drawn and quartered in the presence of Isabella, Mortimer and their followers. Simon de Reading was also hanged, on a gibbet "ten feet lower"[30] than Despenser's. Robert Baldock, as anarchdeacon, was able to claimbenefit of clergy, and was "handed over to his fellow clergymen for trial".[29] However, after being taken to London, "the mob broke into the house in which he was held, beat him almost to death, and threw him intoNewgate prison, where he was soon finished off by the inmates."[29]
In 14th-century historianJean Froissart's account of his execution, Despenser was tied firmly to a ladder andhis genitals sliced off and burned while he was still conscious. Hisentrails were slowly pulled out. Finally, his heart was cut out and thrown into a fire, "because it had been false and traitorous".[30] Froissart (or, rather,Jean le Bel's chronicle, on which he relied) is the only source to mention this; other contemporary accounts state that Despenser was hanged, drawn and quartered, which did not usually involve emasculation.[31]
Despenser's corpse wasdecapitated "to a chorus of ecstatic cheers",[29] and the head sent to be displayed above the gates of London. The "arms, torso and legs were likewise sent to be displayed above the gates ofNewcastle,York,Dover andBristol. Justice was very visibly and viscerally done."[29]
Four years later, in December 1330, his widow was given permission to gather and bury Despenser's remains at the family'sGloucestershire estate,[1] but only the head, a thigh bone and a few vertebrae were returned to her.[32]
What may be the remains of Despenser were identified in February 2008 in the village ofAbbey Hulton in Staffordshire, the former site ofHulton Abbey. The skeleton, which was first uncovered during archaeological work in the 1970s, appeared to be that of a victim of adrawing and quartering as it had been beheaded and chopped into several pieces with a sharp blade, suggesting a ritual killing. Furthermore, it lacked several body parts, including the ones given to Despenser's wife.Radiocarbon analysis dated the body to between 1050 and 1385, and later tests suggested it to be that of a man over 34 years old; Despenser was 39 at the time of his execution. In addition, the abbey is located on lands that belonged toHugh de Audley, Despenser's brother-in-law, at the time.[32]
The Tyranny and Fall of Edward II: 1321–1326 by historianNatalie Fryde is a study of Edward's reign during the years that the Despensers' power was at its peak. Fryde pays particular attention to the subject of the Despensers' landholdings.[33] The numerous accusations against the younger Despenser at the time of his execution have never been the subject of close critical scrutiny, althoughRoy Martin Haines called them "ingenuous" and noted their propagandistic nature.[34]
Despenser is a minor character inChristopher Marlowe's playEdward II (1592), where, as "Spencer", he is little more than a substitute for the dead Gaveston. Despenser also appears as a character inMaurice Druon's historical fiction seriesLes Rois maudits, along with its television adaptations. In 2006, he was selected byBBC History magazine as the 14th century's worst Briton.[35]
His fall and execution is described inThe She-Wolf, book 5 of theAccursed Kings series byMaurice Druon. He is referenced in early books in the series, which emphasizes his homosexual love affair with King Edward as a driving force in his estrangement with Queen Isabella that led to his fall.
The exact birth date is known_forl
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
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