The Perfect King by Ian Mortimer Page B

had fled the country. They also knew that he still had the great seal with him, and a huge amount of silver, so there was a real danger he could have set up a government in exile. But Mortimer and his fellow-advisers had an answer for that too. They argued that when the king left the realm he should have left the seal in the hands of a regent. Since the king was now off the coast of Wales, and had not appointed a regent, there could be said to be a technical absence of regnal authority in England. Here was their opportunity. Mortimer and Isabella agreed that Edward should be regent, an d had Edward's new titl e proclaimed on the same day as Bristol fell.
    In the month since the invasion, Edward had seen his father's authority crumble to nothing. Now he himself was titular head of state. But the greater the position he held in theory, the less his power in practice. He was a pawn, not a king, and he knew it. His mother and Mortimer had taken royal power for themselves. The same day he had been appointed to the regency, Mortimer and Isabella had designated Robert Wyville, Isabella's clerk, to keep and control Edward's privy seal. Later they would appoint the Chancellor and Treasurer too. And the man they chose to be Treasurer was Orleton, the bishop who preached the sermon that Edward's father was a sodomite. Edward was as much on the defensive as his father. The heirs to the throne of Edward I were seeking refuge in the last silent places of their kingdom: in the king's case, Neath Abbey in South Wales; in Edward's case, in the quiet counsel of his conscience.
    King Edward II and his companions were captured by the earl of Lancaster on 16 December, in open country near Llantrissant. Three men were arrested with him: Hugh Despenser, Simon Reading and Robert Baldock; his other attendants were released. The king was taken to Kenilworth Castle , Lancaster's great fortress in the Midlands; the other three were taken to receive justice at Hereford, where Isabella and Mortimer awaited them with vindictive delight Isabella had hoped to make Despenser suffer in London, but already he was refusing food and water: there was a significant risk he would die before he reached London. Besides which, Mortimer wanted him to die publicly on the Welsh borders, and to suffer the atrocious torture which Despenser had carried out on one of his own friends. In the debate about carving up the cake that was Hugh Despenser, Mortimer won. At Hereford, on 24 November, Despenser was dragged through the streets of the city, with crowds shouting at him, and with verses from the bible written on to his body. He was hanged on a gallows fifty feet high, beside his henchman, Simon Reading. But Mortimer's coup de grace was the torture he had waited to inflict on his enemy for so long. Before the man was dead, he was brought from his gallows, and his heart and penis cut out. They were thrown into a large fire. Everyone could see that justice - in a manner of speaking - had been done.
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    The royal party spent that Christmas at Wallingford Castle , enthusiastically celebrating their victory. Not only had they effected the first conquest of England since 1066, they had done so without great bloodshed, and without losing the goodwill of the country.
    First there were the Hainaulter mercenaries to be thanked. From 5 December they began to depart, their job done, while their leader, John of Hainault remained with the royal party. On 26 December the Hainaulter knights who had come in the company of the e arl of Kent received presents. The victors had no qualms about being generous; they understood that failure to reward men who had risked their lives was a short-sighted strategy. Besides, they had not only the collossal treasury amassed by Despenser on behalf of Edward II, they also had the personal wealth of Despenser and his supporters. One of Mortimer's knights, Edmund Hakelut, found £1,568 which had belonged to Mortimer's executed enemy, the earl of Arundel, in