This was the aftermath of the battle of Llandeilo Fawr in June, when part of Gilbert de Clare’s army was ambushed and mauled by the Welsh in a wooded pass near Llandeilo. Edward I seized upon the opportunity to strip Clare of command in West Wales and replace him with Pembroke.

Pembroke’s son had been killed at Llandeilo, so he had much to avenge. Within two weeks of his appointment, the royal army in the west was operational again. The earl employed two able deputies - Robert Tibetot, justiciar of south Wales, and Rhys ap Maredudd, lord of Ystrad Tywi.

Rhys served the king because he wanted to resurrect the empire of his famous ancestor, Rhys ap Gruffudd, ‘the Lord Rhys’. When war broke out in 1282, Rhys cannily judged the situation, and was granted the forfeit lands of his neighbours.

Castell Trefilan was a fortified court, midway between Llanrhystud and Lampeter. It was the headquarters of Gruffudd and Cynan ap Maredudd, Prince Llywelyn’s chief supporters in the west. They had fought for Edward in the previous war, but now switched sides.

In September two of Rhys’s spies reported the presence of Gruffudd and Cynan at Trefilan. Rhys joined forces with Robert Tibetot and Pain Chaworth to mount a night raid on Trefilan. They burnt the court, liberated some prisoners and took over three thousand head of cattle.

Gruffudd and Cynan escaped. They held out for several months longer, until Cynan decided enough was enough, and joined the royal army in February 1283. Gruffudd fought on until the end of the war. He and his brother eventually died as the king’s pensioners, living off royal grants in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire.

The motte of Castell Trefilan, once the chief court of the ancient Welsh kingdom of Ceredigion, can still be seen (pictured). It seems to be on private land now, and not particularly well-maintained by the owner.

You can read more on all this in my book, Edward I and Wales, published by Pen & Sword. If you want to, that is. If not, then not:

Edward I & Wales 1254-1307

I was asked if Edward I was unusual, or whether his expansionist policies were the norm for the period.

The short answer is - yes, he was entirely conventional. Even his fiercest critic, George Barrow, acknowledged that Edward was a conservative figure, who rarely went above or below the standards of his time.

The king’s efforts to hammer Britain into a single unity may look extreme - and his action in Scotland was indeed pure opportunism - but check out what was happening elsewhere.

In 1305-7 a series of political tracts were published in France. They were written by a French lawyer, Pierre Dubois, who had some jolly notions of world domination. His major work, De recuperatione Terre Sancte, was a plan for the recovery of the Holy Land.

The first part of the text is dedicated to Edward, because he was the only Christian king of the time with direct crusading experience. However, Dubois was really using Edward as an example to provoke his own king, Philip the Fair, into summoning a new crusade.

The crusade, if it had ever taken place, would have been on a colossal scale. Dubois suggested that Philip should first re-conquer the Roman empire, and install his brother Charles of Valois as the new Latin emperor at Constantinople.

Next, Philip would organise the mass migration of the people of Western Europe into the Holy Land. This would be done via the French conquest of northern Italy and Hungary, so the passage of millions of people could proceed smoothly. The French, the English and the Italians would travel by sea, the Germans, Hungarians and Greeks by land.

Men and women from all walks of life would be forced to join this grand crusade or ‘passagium’. Every female would be instructed in Latin grammar, natural science, surgery and medicine, so they could work as missionary theologians in the Holy Land. Women were the chief instrument of conquest: they would all be required to learn Arabic, marry the conquered Saracens and breed a new race of Christian super-crusaders, who would colonise the Holy Land and keep it forever.

Dubois was not some random eccentric, spouting nonsense on street corners. He was a distinguished attorney at law and a respected figure at the French court. His plan is an example of the imperialist ideology of the time, practised by anyone who could.

Edward dispatched a letter to the chancellor of England announcing his decision to forgive Countess Eleanor de Montfort. She was the widow of his godfather, the famous Earl Simon, killed at Evesham in 1265.

Below is a translation of the letter, by Rich Price:

‘Edward, by the grace of God king of England, lord of Ireland and duke of Aquitaine, to his beloved cleric and chancellor, Walter de Merton, greeting. Whereas we, at the instance of the most serene prince and our dearest kinsman, Philippe, by the grace of God illustrious king of France, have withdrawn from Eleanor, countess of Leicester, all our indignation and rancour of spirit which we have conceived towards her on the occasion of the disturbance formerly obtaining in our kingdom, and we have admitted her to our grace and firm peace – as long as she should herself well and faithfully towards us and our fideles – and we have conceded to her that through her attorneys she may pursue her right, if, according to the customs of our realm, it should hold in these matters which she claims against us or others of our realm, we command you that, admitting that same countess to this concession of grace in this way, you should cause full justice in the foregoing to be done to her attorneys in her name. Given at Melun-sur-Seine, the 10th day of August.’

Edward had already attempted a reconciliation with the Montforts in 1271. That had ended disastrously when his cousin Henry of Almain was murdered by Eleanor’s sons in the church at Viterbo in Italy.

This second attempt at reconciliation did not last either.

Countess Eleanor continued to pursue the marriage alliance between her daughter, Eleanor, and Prince Llywelyn of Wales, contracted back in 1265. She and her sons, Simon junior and Guy, also colluded with Llywelyn to plant Nicholas Waltham as a spy at the English court.

England remained politically fragile. Edward was a new king, the wounds of the civil war were still recent, and another serious confrontation could potentially have plunged the kingdom into conflict again – a situation the Montforts and Llywelyn might have been able to exploit.

This isn’t a story of goodies and baddies. All these people were political players, manoeuvring for advantage and testing what they could get away with.

In the years that followed, Edward ultimately broke the Montfort-Llywelyn alliance.

The two kings had recently been at war. In 1294 Philip invaded and occupied Edward’s lands of Gascony and Ponthieu. The latter was returned via a marriage treaty in 1299, and negotations for the return of Gascony seem to have begun in early 1302. It was eventually restored to Edward in 1303.

The outcome of the war was awkward. Neither side had won; instead they pretended nothing had happened, and the situation reverted to the pre-war status quo. Edward had recovered his continental inheritance, but he and his heirs were still vassals of France.

It had also created lingering resentments, which no amount of diplomacy could rub away. Instead of doing service in person, Edward sent one of his barons of Ponthieu, Jean de Varenne. This made sense, since Ponthieu in northern France lay close to the Flemish border.

Jean’s record of service survives. Attached is a picture of the memorandum or header for the muster roll, which details the wage payments to Jean and his men. It translates as follows:

‘And memorandum that in the beginning of the said journey it was said to the abovesaid lord John de Varenne that, for doing due service to the lord king of France, he should go, with himself being the fifth knight, with 12 shieldbearers only, viz four for his body and two for each other knight. For which aforesaid company, so assigned to him, he accounts per day in expenses, counting one day through the middle of another, £21 4s 6d. And he so accounts for himself as a banneret per day 100s, for each knight 30s and for each shieldbearer 17s, equally. And there is placed here this memoranda, so that like expenses are not drawn as a consequence, but that the extravagance and excesses of the aforesaid expenses are seen.”

The choice of language here is striking. Jean and his men were charging very high wages for their service: 100 shillings a day for himself, 30 shillings per knight and 17 shillings per shieldbearer. For comparison, the average wage of a knight in England on campaign at this time was 2 shillings per day.

The French clearly regarded this as extortion, hence the reference to ‘extravagance and excesses’ in the last line. As a lord of Ponthieu, Jean may not have been happy about doing military service to a king he had recently been at war with, and only agreed to do it for extremely high pay.

(Translation by Simon Neal at the National Archives).

Simon was desperate for military support, and to that end agreed to all of Llywelyn’s demands. He did so in the name of Henry III, who was being dragged about as Simon’s prisoner. This was because Simon needed the king to put his seal to official documents, otherwise they had no validity.

The letter patent of Henry III issued at Hereford on 22 June, effectively summarised the terms. They had been conveyed to Llywelyn a few days earlier, and considered by the prince and his council before he ratified them by issue of letters patent on 19 June.

Llywelyn’s letters, dated ‘in camp at Pipton’ or ‘at Pipton’, are among the most important of the original texts from Llywelyn’s court that have survived. They register the prince’s acceptance of a financial commitment into which he was prepared to enter in exchange for the lands and rights granted to him by the king in Wales. As such it was a precursor to the Treaty of Montgomery in 1267, but on more favourable terms to the prince.

The document was probably drawn up at Hereford and carried to Llywelyn by Peter de Montfort, who then conveyed the prince’s acceptance back to Simon. There is nothing to suggest that Llywelyn and Simon met in person to discuss the terms.

The terms effectively wiped out the English royal presence in Wales, and all of Henry’s gains in the past decades. Any written bonds made against Llywelyn or his predecessor, Prince Dafydd, were destroyed. Everything they held in Wales prior to these bonds would be restored.

This included the lordship of all the magnates of Wales plus the principality, Painscastle, the hundred of Ellesmere, and the castles of Hawarden and Montgomery. In addition the king promised to recognise Llywelyn’s title as Prince of Wales and help him to conquer those lands held by his enemies. The sting in the tail was a fine of 30,000 marks (about £20,000), which Llywelyn had to pay in exchange.

Further, it was stated that if the king acted against these terms, he could be deposed. It may be that Simon was seriously contemplating deposing Henry and taking the crown for himself.

He knew that Henry would never agree to the above terms, if he was acting of his own will. Instead they were extracted from him by force, which had no validity in medieval jurisprudence. The latter was a bit of a joke, given the amount of coercion in this period, but still a point of law.

The war that followed was a humiliation for the English, but not due to financial concerns. Edward II had inherited debts of about £250,000 from his father, a colossal sum of money for the time. These debts left him severely embarrassed at the start of his reign, though it didn’t help that his Italian creditors, the Frescobaldi, were banished in 1311. From 1315, however, Edward started to accumulate wealth on an unprecedented scale.

Despite the collapse of the Riccardi and Frescobaldi, there was no lack of Italian bankers willing to lend to the English crown. Edward borrowed heavily from the Peruzzi, the Barda and Scala of Florence; for instance, when the war broke out with France in 1324, he obtained a loan from these houses of £2000 in gold Florentines. When Queen Isabella departed for France in March 1325, the Bardi in Paris supplied her with a loan of £3674.

An official estimate of Edward’s revenue in January 1324 has recently come to light. It is based on an elaborate survey of royal income, issued in 1323, and shows an overall receipt of £60, 549. This is close to the total income of Henry VI in 1433, but the situation under Edward II was better, as Henry’s account only shows the gross amount.

Part of the amount collected by Edward was from the confiscated lands of rebels in England, after the defeat of Thomas of Lancaster, but about 80% came from normal revenues. England had well and truly recovered from the debts of the previous reign.

Thus, when war began in 1324, Edward II was in a better financial position than his father in 1294. Three Italian banking houses provided him with liquid capital, mercenaries were recruited from Aragon, Castile and Portugal, and the loyal Gascon gentry summoned to arms. An English force under Edward’s half-brother, the earl of Kent, was recruited through writs to the sheriffs of England.

As in Scotland, Edward’s plans collapsed due to woeful management. Most of the money raised in England to finance the war only reached Bordeaux in May 1325, when the constable received the massive sum of £20,000. Edward’s brother had surrendered to the French the previous September.

Total disaster was only averted due to the staunch loyalty of the Gascon gentry: over one hundred nobles and their companies rallied to Edward, and held the key towns of Bourg, Blaye, St Emilion, Libourne, Dax, St Sever, Mont-de-Marsan and Bayonne. The Agenais, however, a large strip of land on the north-east borders of Gascony, was lost forever to the Capets.

In the letter, Philip addresses Edward as “King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Aquitaine, and Count of Ponthieu” and summons him to appear at Saint-Quentin in Vermandois with horses and arms for service in the French host. As Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Ponthieu, Edward held these lands as fiefs of the French crown and owed military service as Philip’s vassal.

This obscure piece of correspondence may be more significant than it first appears. The conventional interpretation is that Philip did not restore Aquitaine to Edward until the settlement of 1303, and that the crushing French defeat at Kortrijk (Courtrai) on 11 July 1302 forced Philip into a temporary position of weakness, compelling him to seek terms with England.

Yet this letter predates Kortrijk. Philip was already addressing Edward by his French titles and summoning him for military service several weeks before the disaster in Flanders. That suggests that some form of rapprochement was already underway before the battle took place.

The letter also fits Philip’s broader diplomatic behaviour in 1302. Despite the Franco-Scottish alliance, he failed to provide meaningful assistance to the Scots and effectively abandoned the commitments made under the treaty. This may indicate that Scotland had become a bargaining chip rather than a strategic priority. Philip’s immediate concern was Flanders, and English neutrality—or even English military cooperation—was potentially far more valuable than support for Scotland.

It is therefore possible that Anglo-French negotiations were already well advanced by the summer of 1302, even if the final settlement was not concluded until the following year. Philip needed Edward’s cooperation in the north, and Edward could not realistically provide it unless his position in Aquitaine and Ponthieu was regularised. From this perspective, Kortrijk may have accelerated an existing diplomatic process rather than initiated it.

While the letter does not prove that Aquitaine had already been formally restored, it provides important evidence that Philip was treating Edward as his ducal vassal before the French defeat in Flanders. As such, it deserves more attention than it has usually received.

Modern fiction has painted Edward as a coward, an abusive husband and a terrible king. In Outlaw King (2018) he is portrayed as a noisy buffoon with a tragic haircut.

The real Edward was only one of these things - sadly, it was the one that really counted. Even if you strain every point in his favour, it is very difficult to make a case for Edward’s kingship.

It is not that he lacked ability. Caroline Burt, in her recent study of the governance of the first two Edwards, has shown that Edward II could be a very effective ruler when he chose to be. However, he only made the effort when his favourites were threatened. Otherwise, he was completely disengaged with his own administration - more so, Burt argues, than any other medieval ruler of England. That made for a very stark contrast with his father, a micro-manager.

It is true Edward inherited a difficult situation in 1307, including heavy debts and an unfinished war in Scotland. The debts had no obvious practical effect on England’s ability to raise armies and wage war. Edward has been absolved in some quarters from defeat at Bannockburn, on the grounds he could not possibly have won. Even if you accept that, he cannot be absolved from abandoning his allies in Scotland, refusing to even consider a face-saving peace deal, and continuing to throw men and money down a very deep hole. By the end of the reign, he had lost control of the northern counties and was acting as Robert de Bruce’s debt collector for ransoms taken from English towns and cities.

The story that the infant Edward was presented to the Welsh, as a prince who spoke no English, is a later myth. In reality he was created Prince of Wales in 1301. There was no investiture ceremony, and he seems to have been granted the title so he could lead Welsh troops into Scotland. While he had some loyal supporters among the Welsh gentry, others were bitterly opposed and played a role in his downfall.

In one respect Edward succeeded brilliantly: after 1315 he rapidly became very rich, and by 1323 his finances had skyrocketed. This was largely due to the confiscation of the estates of English rebels. After 1323, Edward and his new favourites, the Despensers, embarked upon a large-scale campaign of extortion, kidnapping and blackmail, termed a ‘reign of terror’ by Natalie Fryde.

After several years of this, Edward’s own subjects became sick of him, and did nothing to prevent the invasion of his estranged queen, Isabella of France, and her ally Roger Mortimer. Edward was deposed and probably murdered at Berkeley castle, although the notorious hot poker story is almost uncertainly untrue. Death by smothering (to leave no marks) is more likely. There is a tradition, impossible to verify or deny, that Edward escaped custody and lived as a hermit in Italy.

Attached is a poster for Derek Jarman’s play about Edward II.

A year earlier, both men had been ordered to suppress the revolt of Rhys ap Maredudd. While Bohun was absent on military service, Clare exploited the opportunity to extend his power into Brecon and start work on a new castle there. This threatened to eat into Bohun’s southern border.

The two earls went to war in late 1288. Edward I was in France, so it fell to others to contain the situation. These were the regent, the Queen Mother and the Archbishop of Canterbury. All three failed, which shows how indispensable the king was in cases like this.

Bohun went to Abingdon to complain in person to the regent, Edmund of Cornwall. He then went to Westminster, to protest again to the regent, this time in the presence of the Archbishop, John Peckham, and the bishop of Durham.

Shortly afterwards Peckham sent a letter to Clare, warning him to back off. The letter survives inside his register, below is a translation from the printed volume:

‘To his most dear friend, Lord Gilbert, Count of Gloucester and of Hertford, the Archbishop of Canterbury sends greeting and blessing.

Sir, we have heard with certainty, from people so trustworthy that we cannot doubt their words, that on the day after Pentecost recently passed, the Count of Hereford came to Abingdon before our most dear lords and friends, the Bishop of Durham and the Count of Cornwall, declaring and affirming that you have not kept the agreements made between you and him some time ago, and recorded and agreed by both parties before the aforesaid lords and before us in the little chapel of our lord the king at Westminster; and he prays and requests that those to whom it pertains should provide a remedy.

For which reason, sir, we pray and request you, as earnestly as we can, that if in anything you have failed with respect to the aforesaid agreement, you should make amends for it properly and as swiftly as possible, so that the murmuring may cease—especially in view of the coming of our lord the king, which we expect shortly.

And whatever may be said about this alleged failing, we cannot readily believe it, for you showed yourself so compliant before us for the honour of God and of the king that we do not think you would wish to act otherwise—especially with the approach of our lord the king.

The specific points of which he speaks we do not send to you, for no one has reported them to us in detail. But you may well know what matters he intends to raise, since there were not many points in this affair.

Sir, for God’s sake, by acting well, silence the mouths of the ill-speakers, and send us your will on this matter—we who greatly desire your peace and your honour—so that we may be able to reassure the others who are troubled by it.

Sir, may God keep you in His care.’

The Welsh were replaced by foreigners, drawn by the promise of lands and special privileges. This was not, in fact, an original idea: Edward’s father, Henry III, had first experimented with an English colony at Deganwy in the 1250s, but it failed due to Henry’s typically chaotic administration.

Caernarfon enjoyed a legendary past: to the Romans it was known as Segontium, and prose writers and poets remembered the links with Ancient Rome. For instance, the anonymous author of The History of Gruffydd ap Cynan wrote that in 1090 Earl Hugh of Chester built a castle “en hen gaer custennin amperauder” - in the old citadel of the Emperor Constantine.

When Edward’s officials surveyed the area in summer 1284, they found a llys (court) in existence, with an extensive garden, a port and borough court. Twenty men were employed in demolishing the houses of the Welsh settlement to make room for the new defences.

Caernarfon may have declined somewhat under the later rulers of Gwynedd. According to JE Lloyd, it had been eclipsed by Dolbadarn, and was not the chief court or residence of the princes. Nor was it a commercial centre comparable to Llanfaes.

What it did have was legend and symbolic value, which Edward was quick to exploit. The king’s new imperialism was to reflect that of Rome: the Eagle Tower, polychrome stonework and unique multi-angular towers - the style is consciously and deliberately different from the other Edwardian castles.

Speaking personally, I have been lucky enough to walk the walls of Constantinople, and to my eyes Caernarfon is an attempt to rebuild the city of Constantine in miniature. Edward’s castle is, put simply, a dead ringer for New Rome on the Bosphorus.

The counter-argument is that Edward never visited Constantinople. Big deal. At least one of his household knights did, and someone could have drawn him a picture. As for the rest - the king was more than intelligent enough to absorb history, legend and cultural importance.

Source: Boroughs of Medieval Wales edited by RA Griffiths; Caernarfon by Keith Williams-Jones, Senior Lecturer in Welsh History, Cardiff; Documents relating to the early history of the borough of Caernarfon, BBCS (1937-9) pp 237-8; David Pilling going on his holidays, 2024.

One lesson I’ve learned: don’t trust received wisdom and tidy generalisations.

It’s often said that Edward I and Philip IV abandoned their respective allies — Flanders and Scotland — through the peace of Montreuil (1299). I used to accept that without thinking… until I looked more closely at the sources.

Under the Montreuil agreement, Philip restored Edward as Count of Ponthieu in northern France. That mattered because it put England back into a familiar position: a vassal for its French lands, meaning the French king could legally summon Edward for military service.

And Philip promptly tried to cash that cheque. He summoned Edward to provide ships and troops for war against the Flemings — his former allies.

Edward’s response (1304), addressed to the mayor and citizens of London, was clear enough:

“…we have granted to our lord Philip, the illustrious King of France, our dearest kinsman, that we will provide and assemble in our port of Sandwich twenty ships, well and sufficiently equipped with able men, fit for defence, and with other things necessary for the business of war, in aid of the said King of France, for his expedition into Flanders, for four months, beginning from the time when the said ships move from the aforesaid port…”

Sounds straightforward… except the ships were never sent.

A separate (and very clerical) note, buried in a printed volume of correspondence, mentions the real business: the king’s envoys were tasked with delivering an excuse for the non-service of the fleet, returning the indenture, and demanding repayment of damages.

“A transcript of the letters delivered to Master Ralph of Odiham, to be carried as far as Dover, concerning those matters which Sir Robert of Burghersh, Roger le Sauvage, and Peter of Donewyco, the king’s envoys in France, have to carry out by an indenture, according to the customary practice in such missions—namely, concerning the excuse for the non-service of the fleet (navium), the folding and return of the indenture, the restitution/repayment of four damages (penalties), and the authority to make satisfaction/compensation for damages, etc.”

In other words: Edward assembled the fleet, then wriggled out of dispatching it — and sent his diplomats to Paris with excuses and demands instead. How Philip’s officers reacted is, sadly, unrecorded.

So much for the war at sea. And by land? We’ll look at that next…

(Note: I cannot do too long-form posts too often on Substack, so the sequels will be written up as Notes)

In 1304, after the (apparent) conclusion of the Scottish war, Edward I was able to turn his attention to affairs in England. He was not happy. Crime levels were soaring, the king declared; the land was full of evildoers and law-breakers who ‘flouted’ his lordship and whose ‘outrages were like the beginning of civil war.’

Historians have broadly agreed with Edward’s assessment. The available legal records suggest an alarming spike in crime levels in England from the 1290s onward, caused by unprecedented military commitments. Edward’s frequent absence on campaign, and his willingness to pardon criminals for military service, did not help matters.

While problems certainly existed, they may not have been as serious as the king believed. The records tell the story that one party wanted the authorities to believe: when it was widely known that the king was personally concerned, there was added incentive to make allegations, in order to put pressure on one’s opponents.

For example, a local knight named Sir William Detling was accused of leading a criminal gang in Kent. Among other allegations, he was said to have ordered two of his followers to beat up the wife of one Galfrid de Morton so brutally that she died. In another case, Detling was accused of being a blackmailer, who stole a vicar’s horse and only returned it after the payment of a six-mark fine. Elsewhere he was described as a thief and the ringleader of common thieves.

Sounds dreadful, but other evidence suggests things were more complicated. Detling was in fact dead - he had been killed near his home in Maidstone, before the royal justices even reached Kent. This was not brought to Edward’s attention until April 1304, when the king ordered that no enquiry was to be made until he returned to England. Later that month, and in June, the chancery records named men accused of Detling’s murder, or aiding and abetting in it. Finally, in September, a commission was held to investigate his death.

The enquiry took two years to complete, involving large numbers of people. At last, it was found that Detling had died in a ridiculous brawl, after quarrelling with his neighbours over the price of oats. During the fight, he injured a man named Gegge by hitting him on the head with a ‘Scottish axe’. Both he and Gegge were then killed in the melee that followed.

There were thus two pictures of Sir William Detling: in one, he was an idiot who got himself killed for no good reason. In the other, he was a master criminal. Faced with these conflicting accounts, Edward’s justices reached a typical legal compromise. They acquitted most of the suspects, and hanged two.

Attached is the special delivery gaol commission (TNA JUST 1/403/3) that contains the final judgement.