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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2013
Ranulph Higden, writing around 1340, said of Thomas of Lancaster: ‘Of this earl and of his deeds there is great strife among common people, whether he should be accounted for saints other none. It is safe to say that, by the twentieth century, there were no such doubts in the minds of historians looking at his life and deeds. While the historiography of Edward II's reign has altered greatly since the days of Stubbs, Tout and Conway Davies, the opprobrium heaped on the head of Lancaster is a fixed point of agreement. Stubbs condemned Lancaster as ‘cruel, unscrupulous, treacherous and selfish’, remarking with Whiggish regret that ‘the cause was better than the man’. Conway Davies described Lancaster as
useless as an opposition leader and worse than useless as an English baron … the truth appears to be that a life which was marked by no virtue, rather by factiousness, selfishness, and licentiousness, was sanctified by its violent end and still more by the unpopularity of the administration of the remainder of the reign of Edward II.
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