“Who was Edward II?” is the question Seymour Phillips finds himself still posing at the end of his monumental new biography. Such questions are notoriously intractable. Medieval biography is a difficult undertaking. The nature of the records largely precludes the kind of access to the subject’s innermost thoughts and motives that becomes possible from the sixteenth century. Instead, the biographer is often driven to either inference or supposition. Chronicle material, which usually provides the most colorful detail and judgments, is frequently unreliable, and it is particularly difficult to discern where power lies when writs issued in the name of the king may really originate elsewhere. As a result, a royal biography often tends to become, in practice, a top-down narrative account of the reign in general.
Seymour Phillips is acutely aware of these problems. He cautions that “it is often very difficult to isolate the King’s actions and contribution to the making of policy from those of others” (321). Still, he embarks on his biography in “an attempt to rehabilitate [Edward II] to some degree” (4). He presents a scholarly case intended to rescue Edward from torrid speculation about his personal relationships. More interestingly, through the pages of an often episodic narrative, he shows Edward’s considerable ability at exploiting divisions among his enemies. By contrast, his chief enemy, Thomas of Lancaster, comes across as incapable and foolish. This reinvigorated Edward is not a pleasant picture. Far from feckless, the king waited patiently to exact bloody and lawless revenge, astutely sought confrontation in 1321, and was ruthless, vindictive, and violent toward former supporters by whom he felt betrayed, most notably Badlesmere and Harclay. Phillips cites sinister evidence from October 1324 of Edward demanding that each magnate speak to him independently and in person—“I do not want any concealment or sly evasion” (467). Earlier, Edward surprised everyone by the bluntness of his face to face refusal of fealty to Philip V in 1320. And he was not a reluctant warrior in Scotland, where his prosecution of the war was far better financed, although less successful, than the Scottish interventions of other monarchs. This picture of a monarch both vigorous and flawed gains some support from the Vita Edwardi Secundi, the best critical contemporary narrative source, for whose assessments Phillips rightly and frequently shows great respect.
Phillips is almost always careful not to go beyond his evidence. Thus, “there is no way of gauging the true nature of the relations between Edward and Isabella” (481), although he tends to assume that the birth of children marked moments of significant familial joy and, more surprisingly, argues that Isabella retained affection for her husband after his deposition. His treatment of 1324–27 is judicious. The story of Isabella throws up many questions about her personal role. Few can be answered definitively. It is striking how tiny was the highly paid professional force with which she invaded. In the weeks before the invasion, Edward was at Portchester, distracted by commando-style raids being conducted against the French. Unable to command the loyalty of the capital or to scotch the threat from Isabella quickly enough, his regime collapsed with remarkable rapidity. Perhaps, however, it is only with hindsight that the collapse appears so inevitable, given what we know of Edward’s well-financed government and the administrative talent on which he was able to draw.
From his Irish base, Phillips also offers some perspectives often overlooked. For example, he underlines the importance of the defeat of Edward Bruce’s invasion of Ireland at Ardscull and Dundalk, a development itself no less significant for the future of the British Isles than the English defeat at Bannockburn. He comments on the availability of Irish resources. And he speculates on whether Edward might have survived had he managed to flee to Ireland in 1326. Even as it was, Edward III was proclaimed king in Ireland as late as four months after his accession in England.
There are a number of prominent figures about whom it would be good to know more. The elder Despenser and the earl of Arundel, for example, were highly influential and much hated. However, there is a long section on Edward’s death and “afterlife,” which, largely because of the Fieschi letter claiming that the king survived beyond 1327, has fascinated the conspiracy-minded and the curious. Phillips remains skeptical, feeding the bundles of claims through the mangle of his meticulous scholarship.
This is the second massive biography of Edward II to appear in the last decade. It more or less exhausts what can be established about Edward II himself. Forty years ago, together with John Maddicott, Phillips successfully led the reorientation of the study of this period away from the constitutional and administrative emphases that are to be found in Stubbs, Tout, and Davies and argued instead that events unfolded as a result of the politics of power and patronage. This biography is a fruit of the process that was then begun. It is a striking achievement. However, seven hundred years ago the Ordinances had a big impact. Phillips summarizes them briefly and does not see them as the real issue between the king and his opponents—except insofar as they affected patronage. He does not make much of the striking fact that, at the height of royal power in the 1320s, Edward’s parliaments were able to refuse him supply. Like the 1322 Statute of York that once commanded so much attention, constitutional principles are viewed largely as political tools and so relegated to the background. But perhaps there may still be space today for constitutional history, with more of a focus on institutions rather than prosopography. There is material for such study—for example, a large number of post-1307 parliamentary petitions and the memoranda rolls of the Exchequer, only one of which has been published in extenso. We might then be better able to appreciate the evolution of parliament or of royal finance, an overall picture of which readers will struggle to find in this biography. The individual lives of those born to power or influence undoubtedly have a great impact on historical development, but there are greater and more collective forces that shape the future too.
