Tournaments in the Fourteenth Century

Last week we had a brief look at tournaments in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Today we’re moving on to the fourteenth century and the particular use Edward III made of them.

In the thirteenth century there might have been up to three thousand men in a mêlée and the mêlée itself would have covered a large area. In the fourteenth century tournaments took place in more confined spaces. Sometimes a wooden castle would be built, with one team attacking it and one team defending.

Since a tournament was often a celebration, there would be dancing, feasting and drinking as well. Tournaments usually took place over three days, with the participants being introduced and paraded on the first day, jousting on the second and the tournament itself on the final day. There were judges, and prizes were awarded to those who had distinguished themselves. It’s not clear how they managed to judge a mêlée end even the scoring systems for jousts varied. Generally, the highest score was given for unhorsing an opponent. The next highest score was for breaking a lance on an opponent and the lowest for striking the opponent’s helmet. The knights usually had three runs at one another.

Tournaments were not as profitable as they had been. The knights could no longer capture and ransom one another. There were still prizes in the fourteenth century, but they were of fairly low value.

Tournaments could be opportunities for settling scores. In 1307 Piers Gaveston, Edward II’s favourite, held a tournament to celebrate his marriage. Showing up with three times the number of men he had said he would bring, he defeated everyone else. A similar thing happened a few weeks later at a tournament to celebrate Edward II’s marriage to Isabella of France. Realising that this meant that he was widely hated among the aristocracy, Gaveston asked the king to cancel a third tournament intended to form part of the coronation festivities.

Edward III became king in 1327 when he was fourteen years old. He enjoyed tournaments and used them strategically to show that he was not like his father, who had been deposed, but like his grandfather, Edward I, who had participated in many tournaments in his youth and had been a great warrior. As a young man, he often appeared at tournaments as a simple knight, showing his solidarity with other knights.

He held tournaments all over the country – Derby, Warwick, Northampton, Pembroke, Oxford, Canterbury, Hereford. Although they were more often held in summer, they could be held at any time of the year. There were tournaments to celebrate Christmas, others to celebrate the knighting of nobles, and others to celebrate the betrothals and marriages of his children.

Edward held at least 35 tournaments in England between 1327 and 1357, using them to gain support for his wars against the Scots and the French. He often celebrated the conclusion of a successful campaign with a tournament. He fought in them himself, often in the company of his sons.

One of the last old-fashioned mêlées was held to celebrate the wedding of Edward III and Philippa in 1328 in York. Cavalry charges became increasingly rare in fourteenth-century warfare. Battles were increasingly dominated by men fighting on foot, rather than on horseback, so mêlées were becoming irrelevant as a means of training knights.

Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer, the de facto rulers of England for the first three years of Edward III’s reign, often prohibited tournaments for fear of an armed uprising against them, but they put on four tournaments leading up to Edward III’s marriage to Philippa of Hainault in 1328.

Also in 1328 Mortimer used a tournament to demonstrate that he was more important and powerful than the king. He dressed as King Arthur, in a not very subtle attempt to suggest that he was descended from the Dark Ages leader. Edward III was given the role of Sir Lionel, one of Arthur’s lesser knights. Throughout the event Mortimer took precedence over the king. Mortimer was executed for treason two years later. The king often fought in later tournaments under the name Sir Lionel.

Edward III’s first London tournament was at Cheapside in September 1331.  Queen Philippa and her ladies were almost killed when their viewing stand collapsed. The king, a young man with a quick temper, wanted to kill the carpenters who had erected it, but Queen Philippa begged him to show mercy, which he did.

In the same year, Edward was saved from almost certain death by changing horses during a tournament. The horse he had been riding bolted soon afterwards and almost drowned the knight who had taken the king’s place by plunging into a river.

A tournament at Northampton in 1342 was a bit of a disaster, as many nobles were injured and horses were killed. Lord Beaumont died. On the whole there were few fatalities at the king’s tournaments. This one was an exception.

In 1344 Edward III called on 500 noble women and wives of the aldermen of London to attend a tournament in London. There was a huge banquet for the women in the hall of the castle. Only two men joined them. The Prince of Wales and the earls and barons ate in tents. I’m not sure where the king was, perhaps he ate with his son. During the tournament, the king and 19 knights fought against anyone who wished to take them on for three days.

The king gave tournaments in June 1348 to celebrate Queen Philippa’s churching after the birth of their sixth son. French nobles captured during the Crécy campaign of 1346 were allowed to take part.

A tournament was held at Windsor on St George’s day (23^rd April) 1349 to celebrate the founding of the Knights of the Order of the Garter. The garter knights were divided into two groups. One side was led by Thomas Holland and the other by William Montague, both of whom believed that they were married to Joan of Kent at the time. Joan was present at the tournament.

A series of tournaments were held after the Prince of Wales’ return to England following his victory at the Battle of Poitiers starting in the autumn of 1357 at Smithfield. Edward III used the event to display his French and Scottish prisoners, including the two kings.

Sometimes the participants wore fancy dress to fight. In 1359 Edward III, his sons and some of their friends dressed as the mayor and aldermen of London for a tournament.

In March 1363 the Prince of Wales held a huge tournament to celebrate the churching of Joan of Kent after the birth of their son, Edward, in Angoulême in Aquitaine. His second son, Richard II, also gave tournaments, attending the feast of one in Smithfield in his full regalia, including his crown. This is probably the only tournament in which he took part, although he held many.

In 1382 William Montague, earl of Salisbury and second husband of Joan of Kent, killed his son in a tournament. Somewhat ironically, William had come into the earldom when his father died in 1344 from wounds he had received in a tournament.

The king was not the only one to put on tournaments; his nobles also organised them. Edward III only tended to ban a tournament when it clashed with one of his own.

Edward III turned tournaments into great spectacles. He dressed his ‘team’ alike and, when he wanted to hide his identity as a participant, they all wore masks.

There were few tournaments while the Hundred Years War was actively being fought. Edward III gave up taking part in his fifties and there were fewer tournaments after that.

Probably the most well-known joust of the fourteenth century took place in 1390 just outside Calais. Calais was a French town held by the English for two hundred years. Three French knights, including Boucicaut who recorded his training regime for posterity, said that they would fight anyone who would accept their challenge. About 100 English knights accepted. Against all expectations, the French knights won, although two of them were so badly bruised that they had to rest for a week.

As you know, there’s little I like more than videos of armour-clad men rushing around to prove how flexible and light medieval armour could be. Here’s one of a chap demonstrating that Boucicaut’s unlikely-sounding training regimen was perfectly possible.

 

 

Sources:

Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages – Michael Prestwich

England in the Reign of Edward III – Scott L Waugh

The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England – Ian Mortimer

Knight – Michael Prestwich

Edward Prince of Wales and Aquitaine – Richard Barber

Edward III and the Triumph of England – Richard Barber (This book contains a chronological list of Edward III’s tournaments)

Advertisement

King at last, or how Edward III overthrew Roger Mortimer

 

King, but not ruling

Edward III’s reign officially began on 25^th January 1327 following the abdication of his father, Edward II. Edward II had been forced to abdicate by his wife, Queen Isabella, and her lover, Roger Mortimer, following their invasion of England in September of the previous year.

Edward III was only thirteen when he became king and Isabella and Mortimer were the de facto rulers of England. Mortimer surrounded the king with spies so that Edward’s actions were constrained. Edward even had to agree a secret code with the pope so that the latter would know which letters purporting to come from the king really were from him.

Worrying Times

By October 1330 a few things had happened which would have made the young king worry about his personal safety. Edward II had been notoriously healthy, yet he died in September 1427 after only eight months of imprisonment and his body, contrary to custom, was not displayed before it was buried. This led many to believe that he had been murdered on Mortimer’s orders.

In March 1330 Edward III had been forced to acquiesce to the execution of his uncle, the Earl of Kent, an event so terrible and unexpected that it proved difficult to find someone willing to carry out the execution.

On 15^th June 1330 Edward of Woodstock, Edward III’s first son, was born. This did not necessarily increase Edward’s immediate danger. It was not unusual for children, even the children of kings, to die very young. Of Edward’s thirteen children, four lived no more than a few of days and only six reached their twenties. If  Mortimer wanted a boy he could manipulate until he was of an age to rule in his own right, they would have to make sure they chose the right one before they disposed of Edward.

What did present an immediate danger to Edward was the rumour that his mother was pregnant. During the previous four years Mortimer had been behaving as if he were the king, even taking precedence over the king at public events. If he were to have a son by Isabella, his ambition was such that he might depose (and kill) Edward in his son’s favour. He had many supporters, so such a possibly would not have been unthinkable to a man who had already deposed a king.

The big question mark in all of this is how far Isabella would have gone along with her lover. She was close to her son and it’s difficult to imagine her agreeing either to his deposition or his murder, even if she was carrying Mortimer’s child. This in turn raises the question of how much influence she had over Mortimer by this stage.

The king takes action

Regardless of whether he thought his mother could prevent his being killed or not, Edward was sufficiently concerned to lead a few trusted men against Mortimer on the evening of 19^th October 1330. Mortimer had been alerted by his spies that something was being planned, but they didn’t know the details. Mortimer did everything he could to ensure his own safety. Many of the king’s closest companions had been questioned. Edward’s supporters were not permitted to lodge in Nottingham Castle, where the king, Mortimer and Queen Isabella were staying. The castle guards were told to obey Mortimer’s orders, not those of the king, and Queen Isabella held the keys to the castle. All of these things were, of course, an insult to the king.

The king’s friends, led by William Montague, rode out of Nottingham Castle very conspicuously and re-entered the castle secretly through a small gate which had been left open for them. They joined the king, and Mortimer was arrested. Edward wanted to kill him there and then, but cooler heads prevailed and Mortimer was taken away to London where he was tried. He was hanged just over a month after his arrest.

 

Joan, Princess of Wales

At the end of the last post Joan, Countess of Kent, married the Prince of Wales in secret in the spring of 1361. Why did Joan enter into another secret marriage? Some see it as a bold plan on the part of the Prince of Wales and his father, Edward III, to force the hand of an anti-English pope into granting the necessary dispensation. Because they were closely related, Joan and the Prince needed a papal dispensation to marry.  The Prince was a great grandson of Edward I through his first wife and Joan was Edward I’s granddaughter through his second wife. Others see it as an indication of the disapproval that the Prince knew would be forthcoming from his father when the king found out about the marriage. The first theory might hold true if Clement VI were still pope. He had been so pro-French that he had previously refused the necessary dispensation to allow the Prince to marry a foreign princess because there were other marriages she could make that would be more advantageous to France. Clement VI had, however, died in 1352. His successor, Innocent VI, wanted to promote peace between England and France and was not likely to turn down such a request. In fact, he did not. He also confirmed, at the Prince’s request, the validity of Joan’s marriage to Thomas Holland.

It is more likely that the Prince did not want his father to know about the marriage until he had received the papal dispensation and it was too late to do anything about it. The fear that the Prince’s marriage to Joan might still be declared bigamous was, of course, one of the main reasons for the king’s disapproval. It was also, apparently, a great fear of Richard II’s (son of the Prince and Joan), as he is said to have kept all the papers relating to the validity of his mother’s first marriage close to hand. Had their marriage been declared bigamous, he would have been illegitimate.

Joan did not have to marry again. As a wealthy widow and Countess of Kent in her own right, she had the freedom to choose. It’s probable that she married the Prince in order to secure good marriages for her children.

Edward III’s plan for his son’s marriage, almost from his birth, had been a diplomatic alliance with a foreign princess. Since the Prince was related to most of them to a prohibited degree (which at this time was four degrees), he needed a papal dispensation, which had not been forthcoming. Marriage to someone like Joan, who had no diplomatic value, was not something the king had envisaged.

One potential difficulty for the couple was the Prince’s close personal relationship with the Earl of Salisbury, William Montague, whom Joan had been forced to marry, despite her protests that she was already married. Their marriage does not seem to have affected the Prince’s relationship with his friend and, after the Prince’s death, Joan continued to receive support from her bigamous husband.

The formal wedding took place on 10^th October 1361 in the Chapel at Windsor. Joan was 33 and her new husband was two years younger. Incredibly, the marriage not celebrated by the king. The marriages of the king’s other children were celebrated with tournaments and banquets. For his heir, to whom he had always been close, there was nothing.

As part of the Treaty of Brétigny in 1360, Aquitaine had been increased in size and made a principality. In 1362 Edward III created his son Prince of Aquitaine and sent him there to rule it.

The Prince and Joan set up a court based around Bordeaux, Angoulême and, later, Cognac. Their first child, Edward, was born in Angoulême in 1365 and Richard, their second, in Bordeaux in 1366, shortly before his father set off for Spain. The Prince was famed for his generosity and it was a splendid court. Some considered it too splendid and fashionable, but, for the first few years, at least, the Prince was popular. After he became ill in Spain, however, he was not able to maintain his hold on Aquitaine. In 1370 their oldest son died and Joan and the Prince returned to England in 1371. On 8^th June 1376 Joan was widowed for the second time. The Prince died on the feast of the Trinity, for which he had a particular reverence.

Joan’s youngest son was now the king’s heir. The king’s health was failing and it was clear to everyone that he was going to be succeeded by a minor.

After the Prince’s death his younger brother John of Gaunt became the main counsellor of his son. Despite the ten year age difference between them, the Prince and his brother had been close and John of Gaunt remained close to Joan. He lacked the charisma and ability of his brother, however, and he was unpopular. Rumours began to circulate that he wanted to be king and that he was illegitimate. Joan gave him her support, however, shielding him when a mob attacked his palace in 1377.

This was a difficult time for England. Few people could remember a time when Edward III had not been king. Until his last few years he had been a popular king, but he was now in his dotage. After fifty years as king, Edward III died on 21^st June 1377. The new king was ten years old.  Despite the fears of Edward III, no one challenged Richard’s right to rule and he was crowned on 16^th July 1377. Joan was now mother to a king.

In April 1378 Joan and her two daughters were made Ladies of the Garter. Two years earlier her eldest son Thomas had been made a Knight of the Garter and it’s interesting that Joan was not made a Lady of the Garter at the same time or earlier.

After years of prosecuting the war in France, England was now at risk of invasion and there were attacks along the south coast. Richard’s council could not maintain control of the country and, when it introduced a poll tax in order to continue an increasingly unpopular war, rebellion erupted. Richard was still very popular personally, however. In June 1381 Joan returned from her annual pilgrimage to the Prince’s tomb in Canterbury to find London in danger from the rebels. She and Richard took refuge in the Tower of London.  Buildings were destroyed, property looted and those seen as traitors killed by the rebels.  John of Gaunt and the council were the main targets, but Gaunt was fighting in Scotland, so his palace was destroyed. Richard’s chancellor, Simon Sudbury, who was also the Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered. Richard’s personal bravery brought the rebellion to an end, and swift retribution against the leaders meant that the immediate danger was removed.

Joan ensured that she had control of the negotiations to find a wife for Richard and he married Anne of Bohemia on 20^th January 1382 . There was no financial benefit to the match, since she had no dowry, and Anne’s diplomatic benefit was limited, but Richard and his wife grew to be very close.

Joan retired from court to live at Wallingford Castle.

After the Peasants’ Revolt relations between Richard and John of Gaunt cooled considerably until, in early 1385, John of Gaunt took a small army to London to confront his nephew. Richard was forced into a humiliating apology. Joan intervened and was able to mediate a reconciliation between them.  In August 1385 she failed to reconcile Richard to her son, John Holland, who had murdered Sir Ralph Stafford, one of Richard’s advisers. When news reached her of her failure she collapsed. She died on 8^th August.

Joan was buried in Stamford, next to her first husband, Thomas Holland, which probably caused Richard some embarrassment. He had doubtless expected her to be buried next to his father, as the Prince had probably also expected, but, even in death, Joan was still insisting on the validity of her marriage to Thomas Holland.

 

Joan: Fair Maid of Kent

Joan of Kent’s story is more fantastic than anything I would dare to make up in a novel. She was the daughter of a traitor who married the Prince of Wales; she knew poverty and great wealth; she had three husbands, two at the same time; and she married two of them clandestinely.

Her life was so full of incident that I’ve had to divide the post into parts. Like her last husband, the Black Prince, Joan was given her nickname after her death. In the light of her story, it’s very possibly ironic, since, as we shall see, she wasn’t a maid for very long. Although little is written or known about Joan herself, her life can be inferred from what the men closest to her wrote or are recorded as doing.

Joan was born in 1328.  Her father, Edmund of Kent, made the mistake of supporting his half-brother Edward II, then supporting Isabella and Mortimer in the rebellion against Edward, then supporting Edward again. Edward II had been deposed by his wife and her lover in 1326, imprisoned and declared dead in 1327. Tricked into believing him to be alive, Edmund tried to rescue his brother from his imprisonment in 1330. In March of that year he was executed as a traitor by Isabella and Mortimer and Joan, her mother and her brothers were made prisoners and all their property taken from them.

Seven months after her father’s death, Joan was taken into the royal household. She was cousin to Edward III, who finally took control of his kingdom in October 1330. Since the king’s first child, Prince Edward, had been born that summer, Joan and her brothers moved into the royal nursery. When the Prince’s sisters were born, Joan’s younger brother stayed with the prince (her older brother having died) while she went with the princesses into the queen’s household.

In 1338 she travelled with the king and queen to Flanders where Edward III tried to gain support for his war with France. In the spring of 1340, at the age of 12, Joan entered into the first of her clandestine marriages. She married Thomas Holland, who was probably twice her age. One of the king’s household knights, he was a good soldier who had served in Scotland and in France. He was not what any of Joan’s relatives had in mind for her and she was a great prize for an ambitious young man, even before she inherited her brother’s wealth. Holland was the second son of a father who had been murdered for changing sides in the earlier civil war. Shortly after they married, Holland took part in the battle of Sluys, fought in Edward III’s disastrous campaign in France and then went off to fight in a crusade against the Tartars, leaving his wife behind, all without anyone knowing that they were married.

Bearing in mind that Joan lived with the young princesses, it is difficult to imagine how Holland managed to court Joan and then get her away from her companions long enough to marry her and bed her, but he did, and their marriage, as we shall see later, was binding.

Later in 1340 Joan returned to England and in early 1341 she was forced into a marriage against her will with William Montague, oldest son of the Earl of Salisbury. In many ways this marriage shows Joan’s importance to Edward III. The Earl of Salisbury had been his closest and most trusted friend during the early years of Edward’s reign and he had led those who arrested Isabella and Mortimer at Nottingham castle in October 1330, enabling Edward III to begin to rule in his own right.  The marriage was advantageous to both Joan and Montague. Montague would be a very wealthy man when his father died and marriage into the royal family confirmed his father’s status.

Joan told her mother about her marriage to Holland, but was either not believed or the marriage was not considered valid. It is not known who knew about Joan’s first marriage, but it’s probable that the groom and his father had been told. It’s also possible that the king and queen were aware of their failure to look after her while she was in their care.

There has been speculation about why Joan didn’t just accept the marriage with Montague, since it was a good match for both of them and her first marriage could have been set aside or forgotten about. She must have loved Holland, but I also wonder, based on nothing but her continued disinclination to be his wife over several years, if she didn’t learn something about Montague that made her dislike him intensely. It’s pure speculation, but so is almost everything written about her.

It’s probable that Joan and her new husband lived apart. Ironically, since Joan had already consummated her marriage to Holland, they were considered too young consummate their marriage.Both Joan and her new groom were 13.

In late 1341 or the beginning of 1342 Holland returned and claimed his wife, but failed to remove her from her new husband. Holland had left her alone for so long that it is believed by many that he didn’t care for her and, on discovering that she was married to Montague, decided that he was willing to be bought off by the Earl of Salisbury. Holland was not bought off and nor did he relinquish his claim on Joan. He was sent back to fight in Brittany with nothing resolved. He later returned to England, but left almost immediately to crusade against the Moors in Spain. If Holland wanted Joan back, he would have to prove that his marriage to her was valid. That would take money, of which he had very little.

Holland returned to England and, since the Earl of Salisbury was also in England, it is believed that serious negotiations took place between them. These were cut short when the Earl of Salisbury was injured in a tournament and died of his wounds. Matters were still not resolved when Holland went to France again. He returned, only to go back to France in 1346 with Edward III. All three of Joan’s husbands were together on this campaign. It was the first campaign of the 16 year old Prince Edward and the 18 year old William Montague.  Holland was now a very experienced soldier in his early thirties.

Holland was promoted to joint commander of the Prince’s division and fought at Crécy beside him. He then went on to take part in the siege of Calais and was one of the king’s negotiators there. During the campaign he captured a French noble whose ransom was literally a fortune (although Holland only received part of it before his captive returned to France on parole and was executed) and when he returned to England in October 1347, Holland could afford to start proceedings in the papal court to establish that he was married to Joan. Partly due to Montague’s delaying tactics, it was two years before the judgment was announced.  The esteem in which Holland was held by the king at this point, is shown by his being honoured as one of the first Knights of the Order of the Garter along with the Prince and Montague.

It is possible, but not probable, that Joan had not seen Holland since he left Flanders in 1340. It is more likely that she saw him at tournaments and in the court as his favour with the king grew.  It may be for this reason that a close guard was put on Joan by Montague, when he forcibly removed Joan from where she had been living and took her into his own house.

On 13^th November 1349 the pope confirmed that Joan was married to Holland.

Joan’s story so far raises all kinds of questions. Was she abducted, raped and forced into marriage by Holland? Was she later abducted and raped by Montague? Why did she persist in her marriage to Holland, when Montague was the wealthier man with higher status? Possibly the simple answer is that she fell in love with a dashing older man and, having given her word when she married him, refused to break it.