Ian Mortimer - The Perfect King

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It is impossible to write a book like this without incurring a number of debts of gratitude. I hope that readers will not begrudge me here mentioning the names of my agent, James Gill, and my editors, Will Sulkin and Jorg Hensgen. I am also very grateful to two scholars for their assistance: Dr Paul Dryburgh, who surveyed many of the wardrobe accounts for me in the research stages, and Professor Mark Ormrod of the University of York, who provided me with many valuable hints, photocopies, offprints and references when the book was in a draft form. I would also like to thank staff at the National Archives, the British Library, Exeter University Library, Gloucestershire Record Office, the National Portrait Gallery Archive, Warwickshire County Record Office and Westminster Abbey Library. I am grateful to all those who provided me with accommodation when undertaking research, namely: Zak Reddan and Mary Fawcett, Jay Hammond, Robert and Julie Mortimer, Susannah Davis and Anya Francis. I acknowledge the support of the K Blundell Trust, administered by the Society of Authors, who gave me a grant in the course of writing this book. Finally, I want to say a huge thank you to my family - Sophie, especially, but also Alexander, Elizabeth, and Oliver - for keeping me going.

Ian Mortimer

Moretonhampstead

May 2005

He who loves peace, let him prepare for war.

Fla vius Vegetius Renatus,

writer on warfare (c. 375)

According to the Theory of War, which teaches that the best way to avoid the inconvenience of war is to pursue it away from your own country, it is more sensible for us to fight our notorious enemy in his own realm, with the joint power of our allies, than it is to wait for him at our own doors.

King Edward III (1339)

When you don't fight, you lose.

Lesze k Miller, Prime Minister of Poland (2003)

On October 1330, at dusk, two dozen men gathered in the centre of Nottingham. They were mostly in their twenties, and all on horseback, ready to ride out of the town. But unlike merchants or pilgrims assembling to set out together, these men were silent and unsmiling. Beneath their riding cloaks they were all heavily armed.

The reason for their gathering lay within the fortress which overlooked the town. Somewhere within those walls, high on the massive outcrop, was Roger Mortimer, the earl of March, who kept the young king, Edward III, within his power and ruled in his place. Several of the riders had already been summoned that day to see the brooding dictator. He had questioned each of them in turn; all but one had refused to speak. The only man who had dared to answer back was their leader, Sir William Montagu. He had replied evasively that he would give a short answer to anyone who accused him of being part of a plot inconsistent with his duty. Mortimer had let him go, but not with good humour.

Now Montagu was waiting. He knew it would only be a short time before Mortimer would arrest him and his friends. Mortimer had already given the order that the guards were to ignore the king's commands, and only to obey his own. How suddenly political fortunes changed! It was just four years since Edward II had been swept from power by Mortimer and Queen Isabella, his mistress. It was only seven months since the earl of Kent, the king's uncle, had been beheaded on Mortimer's orders. Shortly after that, the young heir to the earldom of Arundel, Richard Fitzalan, had been arrested before he could carry out his plan to seize Mortimer. Montagu had no wish to suffer the same fate. Nor did he wish to see the young king set aside. He had spent most of the last twelve years at court, and had seen Edward III grow up. But that was how serious matters had become. The future of the English monarchy was at stake. Somewhere in that castle above, young Edward was in fear of his life. Montagu believed Mortimer was plotting his murder and the seizure of the throne.