Isabella and the Strange Death of Edward II Read Free

where she married and raised a family? Did little Dauphin Louis, who disappeared into the Bastille, the heir apparent of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, survive in hiding? Well into the nineteenth century, the French government was harassed by various claimants who put forward well-documented evidence that they were Louis XVII, a prince of the blood and the rightful heir to the French throne. A similar mystery surrounds Marshal Ney, Napoleon’s general, who first abandoned his master when he was exiled to Elba but then rejoined him and fought at the battle of Waterloo. Ney was court-martialled for treason and shot, but legend persisted that he had really escaped to live out a secret life in America.
    In the twentieth century, an impostor claimed to be Anastasia Romanov, the daughter of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, the only survivor of the massacre of her family. Following the Second World War, the western allies and the newly founded Israeli government investigated stories that leading Nazis, such as Martin Borman and others, had cheated the hangman’s noose and were hiding in the cities of South America.
    Accordingly, stories that Edward II did not die at Berkeley must, at first, be regarded as highly suspect.Even during his own lifetime Edward had had to face pretenders, such as the Oxford scholar who elaborated his incredible story about the sow and his missing ear. The
Brut Chronicle
, which had a reputation for instigating rumour and gossip, clearly states that one of the reasons Edmund of Kent believed his brother had not been killed at Berkeley were the constant rumours, throughout the length and breadth of the kingdom, that Edward of Caernarvon had survived. After Kent’s execution, Isabella and Mortimer had been forced to issue proclamations stridently condemning both the Earl of Kent and the allegations that Edward II had not died and been buried in Gloucester Cathedral. However, in this case there was one piece of written testimony which cannot be overlooked.
    Around 1340 a letter was written by Manuel Fieschi, claiming to have met and talked to the deposed Edward II. 1 Fieschi was not a rumour-monger, but an Italian priest, a high-ranking papal notary, provided with an English benefice at Salisbury as early as 1319. On the 18 June 1329 Fieschi was given another benefice at Ampleforth in Yorkshire and a few months later he was made a Canon of Liege. By the fourteenth century, the practice whereby high-ranking clerics collected benefices or prebends was fast becoming one of the leading abuses of the western Church. On 20 December 1329, Fieschi was made Archdeacon of Nottingham as well as a Canon of Salisbury Cathedral. By 26 August 1330, Fieschi was resident at the Papal Curia and must have known about Kent’s conspiracy as well as the consequent fall of Isabella and Mortimer. On 10 December 1331, Fieschi gave up the archdeaconry of Nottingham in return for a benefice at Luton Manor in the diocese of Lincoln. On 3 December 1333, Fieschimust have returned to England as it is recorded that he swore out letters of attorney on that date. Two years later he was given fresh letters of attorney to return to Italy. On 28 April 1342, Edward III ratified Fieschi’s retention of the benefices at Salisbury and Ampleforth. The Pope created Fieschi Bishop of Vercelli the following year and he died in 1348.
    Fieschi was a distant cousin of the English royal family, and consequently must have been acquainted with Edward II during his visits to England. He was an ambitious cleric, recognized and respected by the English Crown and its Church, as well as the papacy. His letter to Edward III reads as follows:
    In the name of the Lord, Amen. These things which I heard from the confession of your father, I have written down with my own hand and for this reason I have taken care to communicate them to your lordship. First of all he said that, feeling that England was in insurrection against him because of the threat from your mother,