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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 January 2017
It was a commonplace of the times, featured in royal letters despatched abroad, and of course in the chronicles, that during the reign of Edward II the ‘indiscretum regimen’ of bishops coupled with their ‘taciturnitas’ lay at the root of the manifest political troubles.
In 1944 Kathleen Edwards produced two articles on Edward II's bishops, relating respectively to their ‘learning’ and to their ‘political importance’. Fifteen years later, she treated another aspect of the topic, their ‘social origins and provenance’. These articles, based on her 1937 London MA thesis, provide the point of departure for further study, in particular for any prosopographical analysis. However, apart from transcripts of parliamentary proxies (PRO, SC 10) provided by Professor Johnstone and the brief Meditacio de Statu Prelati (BL, MS Royal 5 C. iii), ascribed to Simon de Ghent, printed sources only were used.
1 Foedera, Conventiones etc., ed. Rymer, T., 3rd edn, The Hague 1739–1745, ii/2. 72 Google Scholar; ii/3. 4–5, 8–9; Historia Roffensis (hereinafter cited as HR), fos 47V, 50r. Wharton's, Henry edition of the latter in Anglia Sacra, i, London 1691, 356–77Google Scholar, is referred to as AS.
2 Edwards, K., ‘Bishops and learning in the reign of Edward 11’, Church Quarterly Review cxxxviii (1944), 57–86 Google Scholar; ‘The political importance of the English bishops during the reign of Edward II’, EHR lix (1944), 311–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘The social origins and provenance of the English bishops during the reign of Edward 11’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 5th ser. ix (1959), 51–79 Google Scholar. Edwards concluded that a core of bishops was well trained in either law or theology. Much of this material is derived from her unpubl. MA thesis, ‘The Personnel and Political Activities of the English Episcopate during the Reign of Edward II’, London 1937 Google Scholar, summarised in the Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research xvi (1938–1939), 117–19Google Scholar. Appendixes list the bishops (A), their occupational and educational background (B), their known parliamentary attendances (C). The last is perhaps now the most valuable.
3 Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden, ed. Babington, C. and Lumby, J. R., 9 vols (Rolls Series 1865–1886), viii. 298–300 Google Scholar. This is the opening passage in Edwards, ‘Political importance’.
4 Smith, W. E. L., Episcopal Appointments, Chicago 1938 Google Scholar.
5 Ibid. p. x. There is much truth in these contentions. That there was a certain degree of esprit de corps among papally appointed prelates is suggested by an entry in Reg. Cobham, Worcester and Hereford Record Office, b 716.093–BA2648/2(i), fo. 96r: Haines, R. M., Archbishop John Stratford, Toronto 1986, 151–2Google Scholar.
6 This idea is elaborated by Wright, J. R., The Church and the English Crown 1305–1334, Toronto 1980, 262–74Google Scholar. See also Denton, J. H., ‘Canterbury episcopal appointments: the case of Walter Reynolds’, Journal of Medieval History i (1975), 317–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and ‘Walter Reynolds and ecclesiastical politics 1313–1316: a postscript to Councils and Synods, II’, in Brooke, C. N. L. and others, Church and Government in the Middle Ages, Cambridge 1976, 247–74Google Scholar.
7 Pearce, E. H., Thomas de Cobham, London 1923 Google Scholar.
8 Worcester Register Cobham, fo. 116v (ed. E. H. Pearce [Worcestershire Historical Society xl, 1930], 204–5); Haines, R. M., The Church and Politics in the Fourteenth Century: the career of Adam Orleton c. 1275–1345, Cambridge 1978, 163–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 For Langton (1305–37) see John Le Neve, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1300–1541, ed. Horn, J. M. and others, 12 vols, London 1962–1967, vii. 1 Google Scholar; for Martin (1293–1328) see ibid. xi. 53.
10 At Durham in 1311 when the monk, Kellawe, was elected. A relative of Anthony de Pessagno, the king's financial agent, was Edward's unsuitable preference: Historiae Dunelmensis Scriptores Tres…Graystanes, ed. Raine, J. (Surtees Society ix, 1839), 93 Google Scholar, and see Fryde, N. M., ‘Antonio Pessagno of Genoa, king's merchant of Edward 11 in England’, in Studi in Memoria di Federigo Melis, 5 vols, Naples 1978, ii. 159–78Google Scholar.
11 Smith, , Episcopal Appointments, 23–4Google Scholar (citing AS i. 757 – Wharton's edition of Graystanes, ), 27 Google Scholar.
12 For Orleton, see Haines, , Church and Politics, 17–19 Google Scholar; for Stratford, idem, John Stratford, 136–50. Ayrminne was a prominent member of an official family, the chief members of which were himself and Richard. The family hailed from the Yorkshire village of Airmyn (by Goole). See Le Neve, xii, index; Tout, T. F., Chapters in the Administrative History of Medieval England, Manchester 1933, vi Google Scholar, index; Grassi, J. L., ‘William Airmyn and the bishopric of Norwich’, EHR lxx (1955), 550–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘Royal clerks from the diocese of York in the fourteenth century’, Northern History v (1970), 11–33, esP. PP. 18–21; Hemingby's Register, ed. Chew, H. M., Devizes 1963, 174–5Google ScholarPubMed (Richard de Ayremynne). All the elections during the reign are discussed in Smith, Episcopal Appointments.
13 The circumstances of Beaumont's election are noted in Le Neve, vi. 107, from Graystanes's, chronicles in Historiae Dunelmensis Scriptores Tres, 98–9Google Scholar.
14 Le Neve, iv. 23; Smith, , Episcopal Appointments, 41–5Google Scholar.
15 Apart from the works already mentioned, see Denton, J. H., Robert Winchelsey and the Crown 1294–1313, Cambridge 1980 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Buck, M., Politics, Finance and the Church in the Reign of Edward II: Walter de Stapeldon, treasurer of England, Cambridge 1983 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. My biographies of six of Edward II's bishops: Simon of Ghent (Salisbury), Stephen Gravesend (London), William Greenfield (York), John de Halton (Carlisle), Hethe, and John Hothum (Ely) have recently appeared in the Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques (Louvain), hereinafter cited as DHGE.
16 See Morgan, R., ‘The barony of Powys 1275–1360’, Welsh History Review x (1980), 1–32 Google Scholar.
17 Smith, , Episcopal Appointments, 130 Google Scholar, citing Foedera, ed. Clarke, A. and others (RC 1816–1869) ii. 464, 476Google Scholar.
18 For Hothum see DHGE s.u.; Smith, , Episcopal Appointments, 130–7Google Scholar (bishops implicated in the 1321–2 revolt).
19 Taylor, J., ‘The judgment of Hugh Despenser, the Younger’, Medievalia et Humanistica xii (1958), 75 Google Scholar (from BL, MS Cotton Julius A.i); Haines, , Church and Politics, 150–1Google Scholar (citing BL, MS Cotton Vitellius E.iv 9), 160–1; idem, John Stratford, 149 and n. 155.
20 In this lack of political concern he was at one with the other monk–bishops of the reign.
21 Gransden, A., Historical Writing in England II, London 1982, 3–4 nn. 9, 13Google Scholar. Dene's access to records and his selectivity is suggested by his remark: ‘Multas scripturas [Prior Hethe] adinvenit que non sunt scripte in libro hoc de quibus non licet homini loqui’ (HR, fo. 3r).
22 AS, 356. Segford, however, appears to have been the archbishop's clerk (HR, fo. 33v).
23 Ibid. fos 4r–v (where Dene is mentioned as Hethe's proctor in the curia with M. Michael de Bereham or Barham DCL), 11V, 12v (notarial instruments connected with Hethe's election). At fo. 5r in a play on words it is Barham who receives the hostile ‘verba’, Dene the blows: ‘et W de Dene per verbera’.
24 Registrum Hamonis Hethe, ed. Johnson, C. (Canterbury and York Society, 1948), 99, 130Google Scholar (Maidstone Record Office DRb/Ar 1/1, formerly Drc/R4, now rebound separately). Dene resigned in 1324.
26 Ibid. 80, 104, 119–21, 129; Le Neve, iv. 41; Calendar of Papal Letters, ed. Bliss, W. H. and others, London 1894–, ii. 234 Google Scholar.
26 Registrum Hethe, 979, 889.
27 Maidstone Record Office DRb/Ar 1/2 (formerly DRC/R4), Rochester Reg. Scapeya (Sheppey), fo. 295V (old foliation) cited in Le Neve, iv. 41.
28 HR, fo. 2r, where Hethe is said to have been appointed prior on the vigil of the Translation of St Andrew [sic] 1315. Wharton (AS, 356) renders this as 1314 and adds ‘8 Id. Maii /8 May]’ to square with the date given in the archbishop's letter of appointment (omitted from his edition) at fo. 3r. Ibid. 100r: [s.a. 1350?] ‘Et tamen episcopus Roffensis in tempore illo episcopatum in manus domini pape ad opus illius prioris resignaverat. Et dominus rex priorem domino pape honorabiliter et sufficienter scribendo commendavit.’ See also Registrum Hethe, 739; AS, 37 n.e; Calendar of Fine Rolls 1347–56, 354: 26 Jan. 1353, temporalities to be taken into the king's hand following Hethe's resignation. But according to the Successio Episcoporum Roffensium, AS, 378, Hethe held the see until his death.
29 Registrum Hethe, 738–9; Rochester Reg. Sheppey, fo. 1r; Le Neve, iv. 37.
30 HR, fos 98r–9r. The simultaneous falling off in the fullness of chronicle and register in the 1350s is noteworthy, but Archdeacon Dene is most unlikely to have been acting as diocesan registrar.
31 Ibid. fos 30r–1r. The copy of the will is dated 27 Feb. 1317.
32 Ibid. fo. 33V and see n. 61 below. Wright, , Reynolds, 390 Google Scholar, does not include Sleaford in the archbishop's itinerary at this point, but he does show him to have been in Lincoln diocese from the first week in October.
33 HR, fos 53r–5r; Registrum Hethe, 424–8; Haines, R. M., ‘Some criticisms of bishops in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries’, Miscellanea Historiae Ecclesiasticae viii (Bibliothèque de la revue d'histoire ecclésiastique lxxii), ed. Vogler, B., Bruxelles 1987, 169–80Google Scholar.
34 HR, fos 67r–75r; Brett, M., ‘Forgery at Rochester’, Fälschungen im Mittelalter (Schriften der MGH Band 33 Teil 4), Hanover 1988, 397–412 Google Scholar. I was grateful to have a copy of this article prior to publication.
35 N. Denholm-Young, ‘The authorship of the Vita Edwardi Secundi’, in idem, Collected Papers on Medieval Subjects, Cardiff 1969, 267–89.
36 Murimuth, Adae, Continuatio Chronicarum, ed.Thompson, E. Maunde (Rolls Series xciii, 1889)Google Scholar; Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke, ed. Thompson, E. Maunde, Oxford 1889 Google Scholar.
37 Vita et Mors Edwardi II conscripta a Thoma de la Moore, in Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, ed.Stubbs, W. (Rolls Series lxxvi, 1882–1883)Google Scholar. Maunde Thompson in his edition of Baker's Chronicon demonstrated that the ascription to Moore is false. I have identified this man as Thomas Laurence, de la More, a ‘nephew’ of Archbishop Stratford and sometime constable of Taunton Castle. See John Stratford, index. For an assessment of Baker see Haines, , Church and Politics, 102–16Google Scholar and index.
38 Chronicon de Lanercost, ed. Stevenson, J. (Bannatyne Club, 1839)Google Scholar; A. G. Little, ‘The authorship of the Lanercost Chronicle’, in idem, Franciscan Letters and Papers, Manchester 1943. 42–54
39 HR, fo. 55V.
40 Haines, , John Stratford, 161, 165Google Scholar; Grassi, , ‘William Airmyn’, 553–8Google Scholar.
41 AS, 356–77.
42 The political content of this section of the manuscript, embracing the years 1319–21, is particularly useful.
43 See references in n. 33 above.
44 Cal. Papal Letters, iii. 513; Le Neve, iv. 37. It would appear from the ‘Manuscript Material’ noted ibid. 36 that the compiler did not use BL, MS Cotton Faustina B.v.
45 Rochester Reg. Sheppey, fo. 21r–v (new foliation), will of Thomas de Alkham, 29 May 1357.
46 Ibid. fo. 22r–v, probate and codicil, Lambeth, 10 Feb. 1359.
47 For the hospital and for Hethe's chantry foundation (1341) see Registrum Hethe, 393–4, 633–42, 780–1; Registrum Roffense, ed. Thorpe, J., London 1769, 413–14, 548–51Google Scholar; Clay, R. M., The Mediaeval Hospitals of England, London 1966, 255 Google Scholar; Calendar Patent Rolls 1334–38, 264; ibid. 1340–43, 427.
48 HR, fo. 2r; BL, MS Vespasian A.xxii, fo. 127, records him as monk–priest c. 1302. I am grateful to Dr Greatrex for this information.
49 Denton, J. H. and Dooley, J. P., Representatives of the Lower Clergy in Parliament 1295–1340, Woodbridge 1987, app. 5, pp. 107–8Google Scholar. William de Dene was a proctor in 1316: ibid. 110.
50 HR, fo. 2r–v. The ‘ancient manner’; of election of the Rochester prior is recorded (ibid. fo. 66r–v) at the time of John de Sheppey's promotion to the office.
51 Ibid. fo. 2v.
52 Ibid.
53 Maidstone Record Office, DRc/L3 (transcript dated 1258 of an arrangement of 1207 made by Bishop Gilbert de Glanville), /T47/2 (Ordinance attributed to Bishop Gundulf, 1077–1108); DRb–Ar2 (Registrum Temporalium, formerly DRc/R3), fo. 81r–v. Gundulf's ordinance is also in a chartulary of c. 1220, BL, MS Cotton Domitian x, fos 100–1, for which see Brett, , ‘Rochester forgeries’, 402–5Google Scholar. See also Dugdale, , Monasticon, ed.Caley, J. and others, London 1817–1830, i. 175 no. xlixGoogle Scholar, and Brett's, note on this transcript: ‘Rochester forgeries’, 405 n. 27Google Scholar.
54 HR, fo. 2v.
55 For example, ibid. fos 66v, 88r, 88v, 89v, 94r.
56 Ibid. fos 2v–3r.
57 Ibid., fos 3v, 8v; Smith, , Episcopal Appointments, 121 Google Scholar.
58 Sext 1, 6, 16.
59 HR, fo. 3v: ‘quod nullo modo curiam Romanam adiret, nullo tamen cogitante de constitucione Cupientes’; Haines, , Ecclesia anglicana, 38, 249 n. 17Google Scholar. Wright, , Reynolds, 138 Google Scholar, and Smith, , Episcopal Appointments, 32 Google Scholar, mention Cupientes vis à vis Hethe, but were unaware of it in the context of the 1313 Canterbury election.
60 HR, fos 3v–7v, 8r–11v.
61 Ibid. fo. 33v. See also Canterbury Professions, ed. Richter, M. (Canterbury and York Society, 1973), 98 no. 268Google Scholar: he renewed his profession before the high altar at Canterbury. Richter notes that the text differs from Wharton's (AS, 361) – a fair transcription, but not literatim.
62 Ibid. and note. The common servicia to pope and cardinals amounted to 1,300 gold florins and the five lesser servicia of their ‘familiares et officiales’ totalled respectively 113 florins and 12 small deniers lournois and 28 florins and 6 small deniers tournois, which Dene rounds off to 1,440 florins: HR, fo. 7v; Registrum Hethe, 58–9. For the Avignonese currency see Spufford, P., Handbook of Medieval Exchange, London 1986, 122–8Google Scholar.
64 Ibid. fos 42r–v, 56r.
66 Ibid. fos 42r, 45v.
66 Robinson, S., ‘Trottescliffe Church’, Archaeologia Cantiana xx (1893), 211–18Google Scholar; HR, fos 42r (Holborough mill, bakehouse and byre at Trottiscliffe), 44V (Borstal mill), 51r (at Trottiscliffe an episcoIal chamber, another for his clerks and a kitchen), 56v (Trottiscliffe, on the site of the old episcopal camera a herbarium), 57v (Trottiscliffe, repair to hall and chapel, new dovecot and part of barn; Hailing, wooden quay), 58r (rebuilding of Freckenham chancel, also dedication of Isleham iure proprio), 66v (new buildings at La Place, inspection of Dartford window, Thames wall at Stone). What had been a fine east window of this date in Holy Trinity, Dartford, , was ‘mutilated’ in 1783 Google Scholar. The present window is the work of A. W. Blomfield: Newman, J., West Kent and the Weald: Buildings of England, ed. Pevsner, N. and Nairn, J., Harmondsworth 1976, 255–6Google Scholar.
67 HR, fos. 100r, 101v.
68 Ibid. fos 78v, 89v, 90r, 91r; Thorpe, , Registrum, 125 Google Scholar; Gardner, A., A Handbook of English Medieval Sculpture, Cambridge 1937, 328–62Google Scholar.
69 HR, fos 53v–5r; Registrum Hethe, 424–8. The specific articles submitted by the chapter (ibid. 430–1) and incorporated in Mepham's interrogatories concern the bishop's alleged appointment of too many officers in the priory, his exaction of St Andrew's gift whether or not he celebrated the feast in the cathedral, and his conduct of prioral elections – performing the scrutiny with his clerks but without any monks and declaring the election to be by the maior et sanior pars, although this was far from the case (hence uncanonical). See Haines, , ‘Some criticisms of bishops’, esp. pp. 175–8Google Scholar, and for elections, Ecclesia Anglicana, ch. ii.
70 HR, fos 78v–9r.
71 Ibid. fos 55r, 78v–9r. In 1336 a precocious Sheppey was highly critical of the bishop's ‘insufficiencia’.
72 Ibid. fos 14r–30r. For the pension from Lambeth see in particular Registrum Hethe, 106–7, 419–20 and 1224 index s.v. ‘;Lambeth, pension from church at’. Assessed at £3 6s. 8d. in Taxatio Ecclesiastica Angliae et Walliae auctoritate P. Nicholai iv circa a.d. 1291, London 1802, 207 Google Scholar. One manifestation of the special relationship with Canterbury seems to be Hethe's frequent attendance at the consecrations and/or professions of comprovincial bishops, e.g. those of Gower, St Davids (1328), Ralph of Shrewsbury, Bath and Wells (1329), Robert Stratford, Chichester (1337), and Ralph Stratford, London (1340): Canterbury Professions, 98, 100, 102, nos 278–9, 283, 286.
73 See nn. 69 above, 74 below. With regard to the attack on the cathedral by townsmen in 1327 (HR, fos 50v–1r) see Hope, W. H. St John, The Architectural History of the Cathedral Church and Monastery of St Andrew at Rochester, London 1900, 81 Google Scholar and nn., where the agreement which brought the strife to an end is printed. Surprisingly Dene states that he did not know its nature, ‘nescio quo pacto tumultus conquievit’.
74 HR, fo. 53V: ‘Eciam ex causa odii et invidie inveterate quia episcopus magistros S[imonem] et E[dmundum] de Mepham et eorum sorores et parentes ad se vocare noluit et consilium eorum sequi.’ Simon was the archbishop's name – he was a doctor of theology; Edmund was also a DTh. A third brother, Thomas, was a friar (ibid. fo. 51v). See n. 89 below and Registrum Hethe, index s.v. Meopham, Noble, for numerous other relatives; also Cal. Pat. Rolls 1321–4, 458; ibid. 1324–7, 71. Vicarage ordinations for Freckenham, All Saints Hoo (although there was a legal dispute about this: Registrum Hethe, 176–8, 229–33), Hoo St Werburgh and Chalk are in Monasticon i. 180, 181–2, 187, nos lxi, lxiii, lxxvi; Thorpe, , Registrum, 361–3, 423–4, 424–5, 204–5 and for Mailing, 484–5Google Scholar; for Westerham with the chapel of Edenbridge (appropriation with reservation of vicarage), 679–81. See also Registrum Hethe, where vicarage ordinations are index ed only under the names of the individual churches; for Chalk, Register William Bottlesham fo. 14r–v (now DRb/Ar 1/5). Celebrations of orders are listed in Registrum Hethe, 1044–50. See also HR, e.g. fos 43v, 58v, 61v (in the infirmary chapel propter lucem claram ibidem, followed by the conferring of the first tonsure on 240 literati), 80r, 81v, 89v, 96v.
75 Registrum Hethe, 720–1, 725–6, 831–2, 834 (first tonsure only), 779. There is also a general commission for any catholic bishop, issued at the time of the pestilence, there being a shortage of priests: ibid. 856–7. For Bishop Ledred's activity as suffragan elsewhere see Haines, , Church and Politics, 80–1 n. 146Google Scholar, and for the ‘penitentiary's library’, Haines, , Ecclesia Anglicana, 43, 257–8 nn. 41Google Scholar (read Decretum for Decreta), 42 (from Registrum Hethe, 782–3; Thorpe, , Registrum, 127–8Google Scholar).
76 HR, fo. 34r. For the embassy to the French court and to Avignon in 1320, see Haines, , Church and Politics, 23–5Google Scholar; Maddicott, J. R., Thomas of Lancaster, London 1970, 255–6Google Scholar. In France Edward's homage for Gascony was to be negotiated, while at Avignon, Trivet's continuator suggests, there was an attempt to get John XXII to absolve the king from his oath to observe the Ordinances: BL, MS Cotton Nero D. x, fo. 110v.
77 HR, fo. 36r: ‘Dominus Edmundus de Wodestok frater regis factus fuit tune comes Kanc' ad quem comitatum B. de Badlesmere totis viribus aspiravit’; Cambridge, Trinity College, R.5.41, fo. 115r (116). He was created earl on 28 Jul. 1321: Handbook of British Chronology, ed. Fryde, E. B. and others, 3rd edn, London 1986, 467 Google Scholar.
78 HR, fos 35v–6r. Fos 34v [end] ‘In parliamento’ to 36v ‘et perhoreret’ are printed in Parliamentary Texts of the Later Middle Ages, ed.Pronay, N. and Taylor, J., Oxford 1980, 161–4Google Scholar. Regrettably this is an inaccurate transcription. In the first eight lines we have ‘Mouwbray’ (Moumbray), ‘de’ (le), ‘quia’ (quis), ‘eam’ (cum), ‘et’ (sibi), ‘cum’ (Thoma), as well as erroneous extensions of proper names, ‘J(ohannes)’ for ‘J(ohannem)’ etc. Also on p. 161 ‘R(ogerus) Samory, H(enricus) Sandale’ should be ‘R(ogerus) Damory, H(ugo) Daudale [D'Audley]’. Richardson, H. G. and Sayles, G. O. print a reliable text of the declaration itself, from BL, MS Burney 277, in The Governance of Medieval England, Edinburgh 1964, 466–9Google Scholar. Catalogue of Manuscripts in the…Inner Temple, ed.Davies, J. C., 3 vols, London 1972 Google Scholar, gives a copy of the text, presented in the Westminster parliament of April 1308, from MS Petyt 536, vol. iv, fos 36r–7v, being extracts from a chronicle in MS Cotton Otto B.iii destroyed in the 1731 fire. de Shirland, Robert (Sheerland, a manor in Kent?) was in 1319 engaged on a royal inquisition: Cal. Fine Rolls 1307–19, 392 Google Scholar. There are numerous references to him in a Kentish context at this time, e.g. Cal. Pat. Rolls 1317–21, 196, 211, 497, and in 1320 he was in the party going overseas with Edmund of Woodstock, the future earl: ibid. 435. See also Cal. Inquisitions Post Mortem vii, Edward III, no 614. For the incident see, in brief, Haines, , Church and Politics, 129–30Google Scholar; Parliamentary Texts, 155–9 and, at length, Maddicott, , Lancaster, 278–87Google Scholar. The fact that this fabrication found its way into the indictment against Despenser demonstrates both the naivety and the unscrupulousness of the barons. The suggestion that a favourite could have used the document in his own interest (Parliamentary Texts, 157) is unconvincing. The alternative, that ‘Badlesmere overruled them [the barons] and persuaded them that the declaration was more useful as ammunition against the younger Despenser than as a statement of their own principles’ ( Maddicott, , Lancaster, 286 Google Scholar), is a plausile rationalisation, but so unprincipled and palpable a trick stood no chance of carrying conviction and could only have undermined the good faith of the opposition to Edward.
79 Philipps, , Aymer de Valence, 140–7, 270–82Google Scholar; idem, ‘The Middle Party and the negotiating of the Treaty of Leake’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research xlvi (1973), 11–27. There is no scope here for appraisal of his ingenious argument. The Latin (HR, fo. 36v) of Valence's 1321 ultimatum runs: ‘Quod de duobus eligeret rex, aut guerram suorum vel exilium duorum, et quod necessario unum perficere oporteret.’
80 Ibid. fos 36r (per mediatorem comitem de Pembrok)–37r; Vita Edwardi Secundi, ed. Denholm-Young, N., London 1957, 114 Google Scholar; Statutes of the Realm, i. 181.
81 HR, fo. 36v.
82 Ibid. 37r–v; Haines, , Church and Politics, 132–3Google Scholar. According to Dene the king convened the prelates, earls, barons and justices in the little green chamber [in the palace of Westminster] on 7 Dec. 1321. They agreed that there had been an error in the process. The convocation was summoned on 14 Nov. for 1 Dec.
83 HR, fos 46v–7r; Chronicon de Lanercost, ed. Stevenson, J., Edinburgh 1839, 254 Google Scholar. According to the latter (s.a. 1325) the younger Despenser sent the [Dominican] friar Thomas de Dunheved ‘homo religiosus, irreligiose faciens’ to the Roman curia to secure the divorce. Compare Annales Paulini in Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, ed. Stubbs, W. (Rolls Series, 1882), i. 337 Google Scholar, where by implication Dunheved's mission would have been in 1326. The latter interpolates ‘ut vulgariter dicebatur’ and it could be that this was no more than a rumour. On the other hand even the rumour could add a further reason for Isabella's hatred of Despenser. This ‘mooted divorce’ has lent support to the theory that the queen's adulterous relationship with Mortimer long predated their mutual sojourn on the continent as ‘exiles’ from 1325 to 1326.
84 HR, fo. 46v; ‘Cui episcopus dixit: “males grates habeat qui hoc vos dixit”’.
86 Esther, 3–7 (Vulg.). The point about the story is that Haman was hanged on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai, Queen Esther being instrumental in bringing this about! Hence Hethe's sermon might indeed have been interesting: HR, fos 46v–7r.
86 Ibid. fos 48v–501. ‘Episcopus Roffensis in presencia notarii videlicet Nicholai North et testium ad hoc vocatorum protestatus fuit quod non fuit intencionis sue iurare nisi salvo ordine suo et salvis omnibus contentis in magna carta’: fo. 50r.
87 Ibid. Wharton barely mentions the coronation. The Latin runs: ‘An rex legem quam populus suus elegit [not elegerit] custodire vellet.’ See Richardson, H. G., ‘The English coronation oath’, Speculum xxiv (1949), 64–5Google Scholar. The sometimes contradictory accounts of events leading to Edward II's ‘deposition’ and the coronation of his son are examined in Haines, , Church and Politics, 161–80Google Scholar; idem, John Stratford, 164–91.
88 HR, fo. 52r–v.
89 Ibid. fo. 53r: ‘Archiepiscopus…disposuit provinciam visitare et ag[g]ressus est primo pauperiorem et impotenciorem invadere episcopum Roffensem quia eum facilius potuit superare’; fo. 53v: ‘Visitante tune archiepiscopo diocesim Roffensem inhumaniter et dure ac iniuste contra episcopum Roffensem egit et male eum tractavit expensas multas iniuriosas sibi imponendo procurantibus complicibus illius intrusoris archiepiscopo assistentibus, ac eciam ex causa odii et invidie inveterate quia episcopus magistros S[imonem] et E[dmundum] de Mepham et eorum sorores et parentes ad se vocare noluit et consilium eorum sequi’. See n. 74 above.
90 For example at Hailing: ‘cepit curiam de Hallyng. versus cimiterium muris claudere altis’; at Trottiscliffe: ‘et curiam de Trottisclyve muris altis circumcinxit’: HR, fos 50v–1r. Significantly these precautions were undertaken between 1325 and 1328, the period leading up to and following Edward II's deposition: ibid. and fos 45v–6r. ‘Rifleres’ occur ibid. fo. 57r and are mentioned in other chronicles.
91 Ibid. fos 42v, 55v; Treaty Rolls I: 1234–1325, London 1955, ed. Chaplais, P., nos 633–4Google Scholar, where there is no suggestion that Hethe did not go to Charles IV's court in 1323, although no expense account has survived for him. The attitudes of the author of HR and of other chroniclers are discussed in Haines, , Church and Politics, 102–16Google Scholar and, with regard to the events of 1326–7, 168–75; idem, John Stratford, 172–91.
92 HR, fo. 60r: ‘In quo concilio [Hilary 1332(?) in London] episcopus Roffensis licet absens tamen vocatus si pecuniam effudisset regis thesaurarius fieri potuisset, sed nullam optulit ideo nullum officium optinuit.’ de Ayleston, Robert, archdeacon of Berkshire, assumed the treasurership on 29 03 1332 Google Scholar.
93 Ibid. fo. 52r.
94 Ibid. fo. 79v. Between 1321 and the end of Edward II's reign Hethe is known to have attended at least five (roughly half) of the parliamentary assemblies. From 1327 he frequently appointed proctors: e.g. PRO, SC 10/11/519; 12/571; 13/619; 17/837; 17/842; 19/908. Illness and old age may partly account for this.
95 For this strange affair see Haines, , John Stratford, 208–13Google Scholar. HR, fo. 56r gives Hethe's reaction to Kent's ‘liquidation’: ‘Et rediens apud Hallyng. ibid sedit cogitativus et tremebundus dolens de morte comitis Kancie, qui decapitatus fuit apud Wynton’ in quadragesima precedenti [19 Mar. 1330] iussu regine regnantis.’ Judicial action against Archbishop Melton, Bishop Gravesend of London, the abbot of Langdon (a close friend of Edward II's), and others was taken by ‘John Maltravers and other royal justices’: fo. 56r–v. For the rapprochement with Isabella and Mortimer: fos 50v, 53r.
96 Ibid. fo. 56r: ‘In quindena post Pascha [22 Apr. 1330] prelati et clerus per archiepiscopum [Mepham] apud Lamheth. vocati fuerunt pro contribucione regi facienda ubi prelati pro parte regis procurati omnes excepto Roffensi episcopo ad contribuendum consensuerunt. Norwycensis cum Roffensi contendebat pro dissensu, propter quod Roffensis ad hospicium suum per[a]gens noluit in crastino ibid venire nisi fuisset pro eo missum.’ Then, to the Official of Canterbury, who arrived to ask whether in the event of two-tenths being granted to the king by the papacy there should be an additional grant, ‘respondit episcopus Roffensis quod nullo modo est contribuendum, cuius responsioni totus clerus convocatus adherebat.’
97 HR fo. 57r. For this long-standing conflict see Haines, Ecclesia Anglicana, ch. v.