King's Gold
By Michael Jecks - May 26, 2011
King’s Gold
There are books and books.
Some grab you as a writer from the very first moment of turning on the computer. Some – well, some of them are more of a struggle. I’ve had plenty of both kinds in my career, but there have been few which have been as mentally traumatic as KING’S GOLD.
Why? Ah, read on!
The idea for this book first came to me a long time ago. I’d been gradually sifting the period for nuggets of brilliance, and the end of King Edward II’s reign was particularly attractive for me. It had everything: infidelity, betrayal, deceit, war and a road trip too! For most of my career I have been trying to avoid using up too much material too quickly, but this moment in history was one I had looked forward to writing about for ages.
It was, after all, just about the most exciting period in English history: the King himself had been captured and was being held in Kenilworth while his wife, who had invaded the kingdom in order to kick out her husband, was lording it over all and sundry with her lover, Sir Roger Mortimer.
Just a bit galling for a chap. Clearly this was never going to be a good year for poor old Edward.
Just think. There he was, in a dingy dungeon beneath the castle walls, water dripping away . . . well, except he wasn’t.
You see his wife was still fond of him. Even after deposing him, she sent him presents and looked after him. It wasn’t Edward whom she hated, but his close adviser, Sir Hugh le Despenser. Despenser and his ally Bishop Walter II of Exeter were complicit in extortion, theft and worse.
The pair of them ran the country to their personal benefit, and ran down Queen Isabella in a deplorable manner. She was forced into a kind of servility, her money taken from her, her lands and income sequestered, and even her children taken into care. Worse, her seal, the proof of her identity, was removed, so that she had no ability to write private letters. Why? Because she was sister to the French King, and many feared she could assist French forces trying to invade the kingdom.
Yes, she had reason to hate them both, and by the time the King was installed at Kenilworth, both men were dead.
So, King Edward’s suite of rooms was probably very comfortable and he was well looked after. Kenilworth was a Lancastrian stronghold, and Earl Lancaster disliked Mortimer, so the King was an important bargaining chip. Lancaster could use him to threaten Mortimer’s authority, perhaps even help Lancaster to wrest power away from the upstart adulterer. Mortimer wanted Edward in his own hands, but to remove him from Kenilworth would be all but impossible.
Early in the year 1327, Edward was forced to abdicate in favour of his son. What option did he have? All the kingdom’s strongest men were demanding he should go, and if he didn’t, there was a good chance that he would soon find himself without a throne, and Sir Roger Mortimer’s boy resting his backside instead.
Edward II had no choice. He apologised, apparently saying: ‘I greatly lament that I have utterly failed my people, but I could not be other than I am’ - (Kathryn Warner translated from the Westminster Chronicle Flores Historiarum).
So far, so good. Except, even while he submitted, there were loyalists who sought to return him to his throne. Not everyone had suffered under his reign.
Some were criminals who wanted a pardon, and thought an easy (for which read ‘cheap’) route to forgiveness was to rescue the King. There were religious nuts who thought since Edward had been chosen by God and anointed with His oil, any other ruler on the throne was sacrilege. Still more had seen their lands and wealth appropriated by the new regime and wanted a return to the old system. Some men undoubtedly sought money; some positions; and others – well, they were looking for fun and excitement.
So, many of these men formed gangs.
Plots to rescue the King came from all over. Assaults were launched on Kenilworth to spring the prisoner – ultimately unsuccessfully, but the fact that they tried to break into such a fortress was itself astonishing. And it was because of one such attack that the Kingwas removed to a more secure location – or so they thought.
Through all of this, I wanted to look at how the people of the country were affected. Not everyone wanted to be involved, after all.
And that was where the King’s gold came into the plot.
You see, in these far-off days there weren’t local banks. The delight of a hole in the wall was a fantasy. As, in most cases, was money. Kings had problems when it came to finding safe places to hold their cash. In England, the Tower of London was at last being used, but only because the clergy at Westminster had stolen a bunch of the crown jewels in 1303. The French King was keeping his valuables close by too – in the past he’d left them at the Templar’s castle, but since he’d arrested them all, that was a problem.
Local folks did not have the High Street branch of the Bardi Bank to walk to with the week’s takings. They had to keep friendly with the local priest. Because priests had big boxes in vaults with large, strong doors that could be locked. And that was where money was commonly kept.
Now when King Edward II fled London, he had to take cash with him. He had barrels of coin, each holding a couple of thousand pounds. Despenser brought his own money, too. We know that they had their money with them in Caerphilly. But Despenser had more money secreted all over the country. And it occurred to me: What would happen to a parish priest who discovered that he had a whole stash of money burning a hole in the floor of his undercroft?
That was the beginning of the story for me, the image of this poor clergyman staring in dumbfounded misery at a pile of coins in a box in his storeroom, and the question of what he decided to do with it.
BUT – the fact remains that this story was very difficult to write. Less because of the story, more because it was the end of a specific era in my writing career.
After all, this book means the end of the reign of Edward II. Hereinafter I have to write about Sir Edward of Caernarfon, the father of the King.
Long live King Edward III.
Now there’s a monarch to write about . . .
There are books and books.
Some grab you as a writer from the very first moment of turning on the computer. Some – well, some of them are more of a struggle. I’ve had plenty of both kinds in my career, but there have been few which have been as mentally traumatic as KING’S GOLD.
Why? Ah, read on!
The idea for this book first came to me a long time ago. I’d been gradually sifting the period for nuggets of brilliance, and the end of King Edward II’s reign was particularly attractive for me. It had everything: infidelity, betrayal, deceit, war and a road trip too! For most of my career I have been trying to avoid using up too much material too quickly, but this moment in history was one I had looked forward to writing about for ages.
It was, after all, just about the most exciting period in English history: the King himself had been captured and was being held in Kenilworth while his wife, who had invaded the kingdom in order to kick out her husband, was lording it over all and sundry with her lover, Sir Roger Mortimer.
Just a bit galling for a chap. Clearly this was never going to be a good year for poor old Edward.
Just think. There he was, in a dingy dungeon beneath the castle walls, water dripping away . . . well, except he wasn’t.
You see his wife was still fond of him. Even after deposing him, she sent him presents and looked after him. It wasn’t Edward whom she hated, but his close adviser, Sir Hugh le Despenser. Despenser and his ally Bishop Walter II of Exeter were complicit in extortion, theft and worse.
The pair of them ran the country to their personal benefit, and ran down Queen Isabella in a deplorable manner. She was forced into a kind of servility, her money taken from her, her lands and income sequestered, and even her children taken into care. Worse, her seal, the proof of her identity, was removed, so that she had no ability to write private letters. Why? Because she was sister to the French King, and many feared she could assist French forces trying to invade the kingdom.
Yes, she had reason to hate them both, and by the time the King was installed at Kenilworth, both men were dead.
So, King Edward’s suite of rooms was probably very comfortable and he was well looked after. Kenilworth was a Lancastrian stronghold, and Earl Lancaster disliked Mortimer, so the King was an important bargaining chip. Lancaster could use him to threaten Mortimer’s authority, perhaps even help Lancaster to wrest power away from the upstart adulterer. Mortimer wanted Edward in his own hands, but to remove him from Kenilworth would be all but impossible.
Early in the year 1327, Edward was forced to abdicate in favour of his son. What option did he have? All the kingdom’s strongest men were demanding he should go, and if he didn’t, there was a good chance that he would soon find himself without a throne, and Sir Roger Mortimer’s boy resting his backside instead.
Edward II had no choice. He apologised, apparently saying: ‘I greatly lament that I have utterly failed my people, but I could not be other than I am’ - (Kathryn Warner translated from the Westminster Chronicle Flores Historiarum).
So far, so good. Except, even while he submitted, there were loyalists who sought to return him to his throne. Not everyone had suffered under his reign.
Some were criminals who wanted a pardon, and thought an easy (for which read ‘cheap’) route to forgiveness was to rescue the King. There were religious nuts who thought since Edward had been chosen by God and anointed with His oil, any other ruler on the throne was sacrilege. Still more had seen their lands and wealth appropriated by the new regime and wanted a return to the old system. Some men undoubtedly sought money; some positions; and others – well, they were looking for fun and excitement.
So, many of these men formed gangs.
Plots to rescue the King came from all over. Assaults were launched on Kenilworth to spring the prisoner – ultimately unsuccessfully, but the fact that they tried to break into such a fortress was itself astonishing. And it was because of one such attack that the Kingwas removed to a more secure location – or so they thought.
Through all of this, I wanted to look at how the people of the country were affected. Not everyone wanted to be involved, after all.
And that was where the King’s gold came into the plot.
You see, in these far-off days there weren’t local banks. The delight of a hole in the wall was a fantasy. As, in most cases, was money. Kings had problems when it came to finding safe places to hold their cash. In England, the Tower of London was at last being used, but only because the clergy at Westminster had stolen a bunch of the crown jewels in 1303. The French King was keeping his valuables close by too – in the past he’d left them at the Templar’s castle, but since he’d arrested them all, that was a problem.
Local folks did not have the High Street branch of the Bardi Bank to walk to with the week’s takings. They had to keep friendly with the local priest. Because priests had big boxes in vaults with large, strong doors that could be locked. And that was where money was commonly kept.
Now when King Edward II fled London, he had to take cash with him. He had barrels of coin, each holding a couple of thousand pounds. Despenser brought his own money, too. We know that they had their money with them in Caerphilly. But Despenser had more money secreted all over the country. And it occurred to me: What would happen to a parish priest who discovered that he had a whole stash of money burning a hole in the floor of his undercroft?
That was the beginning of the story for me, the image of this poor clergyman staring in dumbfounded misery at a pile of coins in a box in his storeroom, and the question of what he decided to do with it.
BUT – the fact remains that this story was very difficult to write. Less because of the story, more because it was the end of a specific era in my writing career.
After all, this book means the end of the reign of Edward II. Hereinafter I have to write about Sir Edward of Caernarfon, the father of the King.
Long live King Edward III.
Now there’s a monarch to write about . . .
