Sex and Scandal of Medieval Royals

Summary

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

Episode: Sex and Scandal of Medieval Royals
Host: Dr. Kate Lister
Guest: Helen Carr
Date: November 14, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this lively episode, sex historian Dr. Kate Lister welcomes historian and author Helen Carr to pull back the velvet curtain on medieval royal bedsheets. Together, they anatomize the personal and political entanglements of Isabella of France ("the She Wolf of France") and Edward II, exploring what made the 14th century so scandalous, the roles of royal favorites like Piers Gaveston and Hugh Despenser, the intersection of sex and politics, and the consequences for women and men who played—and broke—the rules of power. Expect bawdy banter, gruesome executions, and a sharp look at how personal relationships shaped the fate of kingdoms.

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Main Themes and Structure

• Introduction to the "She Wolf of France" and 14th-century upheaval
• The Black Death and its surprising social implications
• Edward II: kingly inadequacies, royal favorites, and sexuality
• Isabella's transformation from sidelined queen to political powerhouse
• Scandal, plot, and bloody retribution: Hugh Despenser and Roger Mortimer
• The mythic and grisly fate of Edward II
• The wheel of fortune for scandalous royals: rise, fall, and aftermath

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The 14th Century: Upheaval in Every Realm

(Timestamp: 04:40–08:27)

• Helen Carr describes the 14th century as "a mixture of chivalry and tournaments and jousting and the Hundred Years War and Edward III dressing up as a pheasant at parties. Then you've got the Black Death and you've got the great famine and there's war and there's war with Scotland, and you've got a king like Edward II who's constantly getting everything wrong." (05:01)
• The Black Death is compared to COVID-19 but described as many orders of magnitude more devastating, with an estimated mortality rate around 50%.

Women, Work, and the Black Death

(Timestamp: 07:15–08:27)

• The pandemic's demographic destruction compelled social change, notably for women:

  • "You saw women stepping into roles that men would traditionally occupy. Like, a lot more women became armorers ... [others] went into brewhouses, so effectively the early pubs, and it was women who were brewing...and created these spaces..." – Helen Carr

• Kate Lister, tongue-in-cheek: "So what we need to destroy the patriarchy, really, is a global pandemic with a 50 mortality rate..." (08:09)

Edward II: A King and His "Favorites"

(Timestamp: 11:52–18:02)

• Edward II is framed as likeable but inept, plagued by insecurity and reliance on close male friends, particularly Piers Gaveston.
  • "He didn’t understand that as king he was supposed to have a good relationship with his nobility...Instead, he had a habit of putting his favorites first...He was fun, he was a nice guy to be around...but he didn’t get on with his nobility." – Helen Carr (12:13)
• Gaveston, of lower nobility and possibly not even English, was treated like a co-king, alarming the aristocracy.

Edward II and Piers Gaveston: Love or Brotherhood?

(Timestamp: 20:58–23:36)

• Kate: “I know that we’re not supposed to speculate...Do you think it was something more?”
• Helen: “I think it was something more, but...not necessarily compared to our modern experience of what a male romantic relationship could look like...It was a very affectionate, deeply loving, tender male relationship that was modeled on...literary trends...But what it was, even by contemporary standards, was queer.” (21:16)

Gaveston’s Downfall

(Timestamp: 23:36–26:14)

• Gaveston’s fatal error: lack of discretion and making enemies among the nobility with mocking nicknames, ostentatious display at public ceremonies, and even appearing above Isabella at her own coronation.
  • “If you’re going to piss off the Earl of Lancaster...don’t call the guy a peasant. And that’s exactly what Gaveston did.” – Helen Carr (24:03)
• Despite scandal, Isabella seemed to get along with Gaveston, and only after his death did she and Edward II grow closer.

Power Shifts: From Gaveston to Hugh Despenser

(Timestamp: 29:07–32:11)

• After Gaveston’s fall, Edward II becomes close to Hugh Despenser the Younger—who is depicted as even more grasping, cruel, and greedy.
  • “Hugh Despenser the Younger...He’s a complete shit. He goes after the widows...He coerces them out of their wealth and if they’re not coerced, he starts using threats...One noblewoman, he’d break her arms and legs to get her to sign off her land.” – Helen Carr (30:22)
• Dispenser’s gravest mistake: going after Queen Isabella’s own estates.

Isabella's Political Agency and the Seeds of Rebellion

(Timestamp: 32:11–38:49)

• Initially a supportive queen, Isabella increasingly acts with agency, especially after Dispenser targets her.
• Sent to France to negotiate, Isabella seizes her chance, allying with Roger Mortimer—her "Medieval Lothario." Together, they plot an invasion to remove Dispenser.
  • “Damn, that’s ballsy, isn’t it? That is a hell of a power move.” – Kate (35:45)
• Edward’s decision to send his son to France gives Isabella a crucial pawn for her rebellion.

The Fall of Edward II (and Despenser’s Grisly End)

(Timestamp: 38:49–44:18)

• Isabella and Mortimer build an army and invade England, targeting Despenser, whom the nobility largely despise.
• The invasion sparks a violent purge of Despenser’s allies; Despenser is captured, subjected to an excruciating execution—hanged, drawn, and quartered, genitals cast into the fire.
  • “They have Dispenser...wear a crown of thorns. He’s completely naked and he’s watching all these entrails come out. And then they take off his penis and they throw them all onto a furnace below.” – Helen (43:34)
• Edward II is deposed and imprisoned, his reign at an end.

The Death of Edward II: Poker or Propaganda?

(Timestamp: 46:10–51:46)

• The infamous tale of Edward’s death by hot poker is debunked:
  • “The rumour is that he was killed by anal penetration with a red hot poker... What do you think about that, Helen?”
  • “I think it’s rubbish. It’s complete rubbish...It’s a mimetic, literary trend...probably he was smothered in his sleep. That’s what I think happened.” – Helen (48:53–51:46)
• The hot poker legend is seen as literary invention, possibly with homophobic overtones in later retellings.

The Wheel of Fortune: Isabella and Mortimer's Rise and Fall

(Timestamp: 52:10–57:59)

• Having overthrown Edward, Isabella and Mortimer enjoy an open relationship and immense power, but overreach leads to their downfall.
  • They fabricate evidence to execute Edmund, Earl of Kent (Edward II’s half-brother), sparking outrage and hardening enemies.
  • Edward III, coming of age, leads a coup and Mortimer is executed as “someone who tried to steal the responsibility of kingship.” Isabella retires to a nunnery—alive, but stripped of power.
• “It’s the wheel of fortune...sometimes you’re at the top...and then you go crash at the bottom.” – Helen Carr (52:10)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You know that if historical chroniclers are calling you the she Wolf of France, then you are doing something right.”
  – Kate Lister (02:28)

• “So what we need to destroy the patriarchy, really, is a global pandemic with a 50 mortality rate and then we might...be getting somewhere.”
  – Kate (08:09)

• “I think probably not. I think it was a very affectionate, deeply loving, tender male relationship ... Even by their standards, they were in love. That was a queer thing because it was against the norm.”
  – Helen Carr on Edward II & Gaveston (21:16-23:36)

• “Isabella is keen to get Dispenser down to London because she wants his execution to be like, big centre stage. This is like the Nebworth of executions.”
  – Helen (42:09)

• “They like to make sure he was dead and then some. Wow.”
  – Kate (43:34)

• “I think she was genuinely intimidated by Hugh Dispenser and, as we know as women, what it’s like to be around a dangerous and aggressive man and how terrifying that is.”
  – Helen (38:49)

• “The rumour is that he was killed by anal penetration with a red hot poker...I think it’s rubbish. It’s complete rubbish.”
  – Helen (48:53-48:56)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 04:40 – Why the 14th century is so wild and captivating
• 06:41 – The scope and devastation of the Black Death
• 07:15 – Post-plague gender roles and societal changes
• 12:13 – Edward II’s failure as a ruler and relationship with Gaveston
• 21:16 – Gaveston: lover or “brother”? Queer history in context
• 24:03 – Gaveston’s social blunders and coronation scandal
• 29:07 – Rise of Hugh Despenser; antagonizing Isabella
• 35:25 – Isabella meets Mortimer; plotting the invasion
• 42:09 – Dispenser’s execution: spectacle and brutality
• 46:26 – Edward II’s abdication and death; poking holes in the poker myth
• 52:10 – Isabella and Mortimer’s brief rule and tragic fall
• 57:59 – Isabella’s exile and the legacy of the “She Wolf of France”

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Tone and Style

Engaging, irreverent, and accessible: Kate Lister and Helen Carr blend bawdy humor, sharp wit, and deep expertise. Conversations range from scholarly analysis to exuberant asides, always foregrounding the human drama behind the history.

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For Further Exploration

• Helen Carr’s book: "Sceptered: A New History of the 14th Century"
• Helen’s documentary for History Hit: “Edward II: England’s Worst Monarch”
• Follow Helen Carr on Instagram and Substack for more medieval mayhem

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Listeners will come away with a richer understanding of how medieval scandal, sex, and political intrigue shaped the trajectory of English history—and how much, in society and relationships, truly never changes.

Transcript

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[Kate Lister]

Hello my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister and you are listening to Betwixt the Sheets. And because we care about health and safety around these parts, I have to tell you this is an adult podcast booking by adults to other adults about adulty things in an adulty way covering arrangement subjects. And you should be an adult too. Oh my God, I feel safer. Do you feel safer? Then let's proceed together. It is 3-13-25 and we are down on the cliffs of Dover overlooking the choppy waters And I am definitely not here for a cold swim. No, thank you. I am here because on the beach down below, Queen Isabella of France is making a diplomatic journey back to her homeland and leaving her husband, King Edward ii, behind to boot. Why does this journey become fateful for Edward's reign? Why does Isabella get the frankly fantastic name, the she Wolf of France? It's all built into some seriously saucy historical scandal, and I can't wait to find out more. Hello, and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society with me, Kate Lister. You know that if historical chroniclers are calling you the she Wolf of France, then you are doing something right. God, love a grandiose nickname like that. The she Wolf of Yorkshire. Well, maybe not. I'll have to downgrade myself a little bit there. The she Cockapoo of Yorkshire. No, that's. That's fine. We'll move along. But Isabella of France definitely deserved her nickname of the she Wolf of France, because she pissed quite a few people off, English nobleman mostly, with how she played them in the 14th century. Do you want to find out more? Well, I know I do. Joining me today is historian and author Helen Carr, and she is going to help us get to know this woman, her husband, and her reputation a little bit better. So without further ado, let's crack on. Hello and welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Helen Kerr. How are you doing?

[Helen Carr]

I'm very well. Thank you so much for having me.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, I'm absolutely thrilled to have you here.

[Helen Carr]

Well, it's great to be on. I'm a big fan of podcast and it always keeps me entertained, so it's a joy to be here talking about royal sex in the Middle Ages.

[Kate Lister]

Well, you are one of the perfect people to talk to about this because you have just done a history documentary on Edward ii, but you're also the author of Sceptered, a new history of the 14th century. Helen, what is it about the 14th century that you love so very much? When did you zone in on that? And you went, no, it's not 12th, it's not 15th, it's 14th.

[Helen Carr]

That's me with so many historians. I mean, you must have this when you speak to people. I sort of feel like the period that you're interested in finds you as much as you find it, and it's so somehow you're drawn to all these different things that are going on, and they all seem to be happening around the same time. So for me, it was this sort of mixture of chivalry and tournaments and jousting and the Hundred Years War and Edward III dressing up as a pheasant at parties. Then you've got the Black Death and you've got the great famine and there's war and there's war with Scotland, and you've got a king like Edward II who's constantly getting everything wrong. And it's also, I suppose, the monarchs that reign over the course of this century. Edward ii, Edward III in the middle, and then the notoriously bad king, Richard II right at the end, sort of. You have this sandwich of two bad kings as the bread, and then the seemingly good king and the fun king as the one in the middle. So I found the politics and the social history all combined fascinating when you.

[Kate Lister]

Say it like that. It was a pretty mad time to be alive. I mean, wherever you go throughout history, it's got its quirks, shall we say, But, I mean, the Black Death, like, wow.

[Helen Carr]

Yeah. Extraordinary. I don't think. I mean, you get a lot of people comparing it to Covid. I just. I think it is incomparable.

[Kate Lister]

I think people do that because that's, like, our only familiarity with a big illness, and, like, that's our tiny little thing that we can hook onto it. And when you think that, like, Covid has a death rate of, oh, I can't remember what it is, but, like, the Black death is almost 100% and, well, how many people did it wipe out? Like, because the estimates vary, don't they?

[Helen Carr]

Yeah, it's difficult to really know, but it's probably loosely estimated at around 50%, if not slightly more, and slightly more in certain spaces. I know, completely mad. Like, 50% of the people you know.

[Kate Lister]

Statistically, 50% of your friends, 50% your family, but also 50% of the people that you just encounter in your daily life. Like, we saw how. Again, sorry for the COVID comparison, but we saw how quickly our infrastructure crumbled when people couldn't go out to work, and how fragile it is now. Imagine half of them were dead. Like, it would just grind to a halt, wouldn't it?

[Helen Carr]

And it absolutely did. And what's so interesting is this period after the Black Death where we're trying to sort of understand what was it like to exist in the world in this time. A lot of people had to be incredibly innovative. So on a more kind of like, prosaic level, things like finding the machinery to grind grain rather than grinding it yourself to make bread. So you see a lot more water mills being built and put in place because they're just worse than enough manpower to be able to do it. But you also saw women stepping into roles that men would traditionally occupy. Like a lot more women became armorers, women also, who were already Brewsters at the time. So women brewing ale, but they used to brew them in the home and then after the Black Death, they went into brewhouses, so effectively the early pubs, and it was women who were brewing the ale and they created these spaces, which must have been an amazing space for all these women to combine and share chats and life experience.

[Kate Lister]

So what we need to destroy the patriarchy, really, is a global pandemic with a 50 mortality rate and then we might. We might be getting somewhere.

[Helen Carr]

Yeah. And then we. We can all just go and start brewing gin again, like the good old days.

[Kate Lister]

No, we shouldn't wish for such thing. That's terrible.

[Helen Carr]

It's brewing gin. That's also probably not the right way of putting it.

[Kate Lister]

That's you out straight away. That's.

[Helen Carr]

Yeah, exactly.

[Kate Lister]

The both of us get out. That would be absolutely pathetic. I do remember, like, looking at all the politicians and everyone trying to lead us through that. Not particularly well, but I do remember thinking, as shit a job as I think that they're doing, I'm glad I don't have to do this job. I'm very, very glad that it doesn't fall to me to try and manage this. Who was managing the Black Death?

[Helen Carr]

Well, firstly, Kate. I mean, you probably would have done a better job.

[Kate Lister]

I probably would have done, yeah, you're right.

[Helen Carr]

But who was managing the Black Death? I mean, I think it was an impossible thing to manage, the king and his government. But the King and his government put in some sanitary protection. They made sure that plague pits weren't being dug within the city walls. They were trying to put them outside of the city walls to avoid contamination. There was a general effort to try and clean up the streets, concerned that it was coming from a general smell. There was this idea that it was. It was from the smell of the streets and the smell of dead bodies that people were inhaling plague and becoming sick with it. So there was a general effort to clean up the streets effectively, but mostly it was just trying to avoid people coming into contact with each other. So they abandoned Parliament for the period of plague. And often you saw it going on into the 14th century, where parliament would be cancelled because there was a wave of plague moving through the city, or Parliament was moved elsewhere into the countryside. And you saw people, you know, as they did into the 16th and 17th centuries. They would just leave the city in the summer and they would head off to the countryside into their nice big houses, so. Right for them. And Edward iii, who was the king at the time, spent the entirety of that first really dramatic wave of plague at his country residence in Woodstock. And so he didn't really. He didn't really come into contact with it in the same way as people who were living in close, you know, quarters, like in the city, in London or in any sorts of market towns would have done. And it was particularly virulent on the port. So you saw trade starting to, you know, completely cease to. Cease to continue. Everything was being sort of shut down. Effectively a medieval lockdown.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, it just must have been such a crazy, crazy time. I'm going to get distracted now. I can't talk to you about the plague. I want to now. I want to ask more questions, but I'm going to stay for.

[Helen Carr]

How much sex were people having during the plague?

[Kate Lister]

Quite a lot, apparently.

[Helen Carr]

Yeah. Yeah. But quite a lot. So apparently there are some sources that talk about how women became particularly licentious during. During the plague years. They'd often blame plague on everything. They blamed plague on ridiculous fashion. So, you know, people being. Exposing too much flesh. They blamed it on children not doing as their parents were told, which, frankly, is probably true. And they blamed it on women being overtly sexual. And apparently you saw women sort of chasing men around at the end of the plague. So it was desperately trying to. Trying to get some extra.

[Kate Lister]

Do you know what I can kind of understand, like, if you're faced with that, they had no fucking clue what was going on. They'd know, like, there's punishment from God, we're all gonna die. Who knows? Yeah, you'd be ripping the knickers off one another, wouldn't you?

[Helen Carr]

Weirdly, also, if you were married to John the Brewer and he died, you'd always had your eye on Jack the Thatcher.

[Kate Lister]

Do it.

[Helen Carr]

And Jack the Thatcher was alive, he'd be like, let's get on with. Let's just do it. Life's for living. Because we don't know how long we've got.

[Kate Lister]

I can understand that, but I mean, it must have been quite a chaotic environment. Let's talk about Edward ii.

[Helen Carr]

Yeah, the king who didn't experience the plague. Let's talk about him vividly.

[Kate Lister]

He didn't experience the plague. But I'm just thinking, like, this whole century is an absolute clusterfuck. There's so much going on and what you'd really want is a stable Leadership that you could be like, all right, there's wars and famine, but he's gonna get us through this. Was he that king?

[Helen Carr]

Absolutely not. And he wasn't that king because he could not rule independently and he could not rule effectively. So he didn't understand that he, as king, was supposed to have a good relationship with his nobility. And they were effectively meant to work as a team with him as the leader at the top. And he was supposed to rule government fairly. He was supposed to think about the realm, put the realm first, put the people first. But instead, he all had a habit of putting his favorites first. And I think this came down to insecurity. He was somebody who never really had the disposition or the sort of mental clarity that kingship required. He was fun. He was a nice guy to be around. He was super generous. And what's interesting about Edward II is he's often portrayed as this sort of fop. Like, you know, in Braveheart, there's the Edward ii. He's walking around Westminster palace with a mirror, and he's, like, draping himself in all these furs and nice velvets and his makeup. And actually, he wasn't like that at all. He was. He was pretty masculine. He was good at war. He was good at fighting. He fought at the Battle of Bannockburn. He was a good leader in that respect. And he liked sport. He loved things like what's been called as rustic pursuits. So he loved going and helping people like thatch roofs and digging deep slightly.

[Kate Lister]

Odds. That's slightly odd. If the king's gonna help you thatch your roof, that's a moment, isn't it? Of, like, what the fuck is going on?

[Helen Carr]

Yeah, exactly. It's that moment where you're like, how. It's like when you spot a celebrity and you sort of chat with them in a really bizarre scenario, and you're like, yes, this is strange.

[Kate Lister]

Why would he suddenly want any? Right, okay. All right. So he's hands on.

[Helen Carr]

That apparently, was his thing. He's quite hands on. He's, you know, he loves giving gifts to people. He's also very close to his sisters, but he's never really grown up with. With brothers. So he's not grown up. Yeah, he sounds nice. And initially, I think he was quite a nice guy, but he didn't get on with his nobility because he always had this great mate who he wanted to give all of the responsibility to. And we know that in kingship from way back all the way through to, you know, present day, that doesn't Work if you're in a position of power and leadership. And his most famous friend and his favorite person, most famously was Piers Gaveston, who was a household knight, he was a squire who would come from Gascony, so he wasn't even English. I say that inverted commas because the complexity of what England looked like in the Middle Ages. But he came over from Gascony, he went into the household of Edward II as a boy, and they got on very, very well. And they seem to have a lot of fun together. Very well. How well is questionable.

[Kate Lister]

We'll get on to that. But, yes, they are very good friends.

[Helen Carr]

They're very good friends. But that starts to irk the nobility when Edward becomes king, because when you're king, you don't share power, you hold the power, but you distribute roles fairly. And what Edward did, which was a curious act, was he sort of seemed to share his kingship with Piers Gaveston. There was a lot of symbolism that he used. He treated him as if he were his brother, if he were another prince of the realm, which, as we know, was not the case, and that it was a terrible decision and he insisted on protecting him, much to his detriment into the rest of his reign, which eventually resulted in Gaveston being murdered.

[Kate Lister]

So Gaveston, we'll get to him being murdered. He isn't really a member of the nobility. He's a squire person that's in the house. He's certainly not royal, that's for sure. He might not even be English, and we're certainly not gonna stand for that. And what we've got is the king, who is kind of treating him like a co king.

[Helen Carr]

It's exactly that vibe. And I think that it comes down to Edward not being secure enough and having the confidence. It's like he always has to check it with him. He has to check with Gaddan. Is this all right? What do you think to this? What do you think to that?

[Kate Lister]

He did have a mental dad, though. His dad was Edward I, who was quite brutal.

[Helen Carr]

He was super.

[Kate Lister]

I don't know why I'm making that link, like, is that.

[Helen Carr]

I think it's an important link, though. I think it's an important link because I think his dad was a bully. And there is this very famous scene where it's in relation to Piers Gaveston before the death of his father. So in the late 13th century, very early 14th century, when Edward was still alive, he was still Edward I, he was still acting. He was very powerful in. In France, he was very powerful in England. Everyone was slightly afraid of Edward I, basically including his son, the future Edward ii. His son, currently Prince Edward, went to the treasurer and said, I want to give my friend Piers Gaveston land in France. And this goes back to his father. Edward is so angry. His father is so angry, he allegedly grabbed his son by the hair, ripped out a chunk of his hair, and he says, you son of a bitch. How dare you try to give away land when you. You have not earned it, as in, you have not cut your teeth at kingship. You have no idea what it is to conquer. How dare you give away land that I have conquered to somebody who's completely unworthy. That's a scary daddy, scary dad. So it's no wonder that he's insecure. So Gaveston is then exiled because Edward I is so pissed off, and that's the punishment to his son, right? Your friend's off. He's going back to France. He's not coming back again. But then Edward I dies. Edward becomes Edward ii, and his first act, which speaks volumes before his father's barely cold, is to recall Gaveston from exile and he gives him the Eldom of Cornwall. So he elevates him into this incredibly prestigious noble position. And he does all of that when his father has not even been buried. And he's so fresh, the role as king, he has to use his father's seal. So it's kind of like using his father's signature to formalize all of this.

[Kate Lister]

I'll be back with Helen and Isabella after this short break.

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[Kate Lister]

I know that we're not supposed to speculate and I know that we'll never know. And we have to caveat it with like we'll never know for sure what is going on between these two. I mean you can form very intense platonic friendships. I've had several of them in my life. They'd never given me bits of France, but that can happen. Do you think it was something more?

[Helen Carr]

I think it was something more, but I think that it wasn't something more that we can necessarily compared to our modern day experience of what a male romantic relationship could look like. I think to me and what the record tells us is that Edward continually called Gaveston brother. So you see in the written record in Parliament he's referring to him as my brother brother. And I think that he saw him as a brother, but in a very romantic sense. So he was looking to romance traditions of the period Arthurian legend, where you have in a lesser known version of Arthurian literature, there's the romance story between Lancelot and a giant called Galahaut. And Galahaut is in love with Lancelot. And eventually they're buried together. They form what's called a ritual brotherhood. And it's not necessarily that this is something that is sexual, but it's more like a marriage. It's more like a formal bond between men in an incredibly affectionate and loving way. But in this time, I'm not entirely sure that would necessarily mean that they were having penetrative sex. Maybe there were other things that were going on. But if you think about people who are dictated by religious law, sodomy, as it was called, was considered a major sin. And even though Edward was accused of it later on, we never really know if that's really what he was doing. I think probably not. I think it was a very affectionate, deeply loving, tender male relationship that was modeled on not only these kind of literary trends, but some of the more religious ones as well. There's David and Jonathan, who were these two figures in the Bible, who lived a very loving male relationship, but it wasn't necessarily a sexual one. And I think that's more what it probably was. But what it was, even by contemporary standards, was queer. So people, even by their standards, they were in love. That was a queer thing because it was against the norm. And so I think that I would describe it as a queer relationship, but it doesn't mean that it was necessarily including penetrative sex.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, very well answered there. But whatever the hell was going on, Gaveston fails at one of the first protocols of being a royal favorite, like page one of how to be a good royal favorite. And that's know your place and don't make ripples. Just enjoy the crown and the jewels and the nice dresses and just shut up. And he doesn't do that and gets to be. It is such a pain in the ass that they. They do haven't bumped off, don't they?

[Helen Carr]

They haven't bumped off because he does things like you can imagine he and Edward having a real laugh after a few glasses of wine from Gascony in Edward's apartments, taking the piss out of all the nobility in Galveston. Started to make up nicknames for them. So he called them sort of Burst belly, as in really fat, or the Black Dog. He called the Earl of Lancaster a churl. And this is one of the most wealthy men in the realm. And he's calling him a churl, which effectively not smart. He's calling him a peasant. If you're going to Piss off the Earl of Lancaster, who's eventually going to be the one who does pump you off. Don't call the guy a peasant. And that's exactly what. Exactly what Gaveston did. And he wasn't shy about it. But he also managed to really irk the French, because at Edward and Isabella of France. So this is Edward's young wife, who was a child when they were married. At the coronation, as the procession was going on, Gaveston had all the most important jobs. He was allowed to wear purple, which no one else was allowed to wear unless you were royal. The chronicler described him as dressing like the God Mars and he was dripping in pearls and all this finery. But the most insulting thing was above the two royal thrones where the coronation took place, there was the arms, the coat of arms of Edward, King of England. But then instead of Isabella of France, there was Piers Gaveston's, which is like, why that is like the worst PR move ever. And that seems to really anger the French. So stupid. And Isabella's brother, who was there witnessing the coronation, apparently threatened to have Gaveston killed there and then, because he was so angry about it.

[Kate Lister]

Isabella was only like 10 when this happened. So, you know, we'll come back to that. That's weird enough on its own, but, like, imagine that you've gone to get married to the King and then you're getting married, but then this ridiculous twink Gaveston is like parading round in a dress colour that you should have been wearing, like, dressed better than you are. And his name is above the throne as well. That.

[Helen Carr]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

Like, I don't even think you need to understand 14th century societal norms to get your head around that one. That's rude. That's really bad.

[Helen Carr]

It's very rude. And it's rude because Edward is so weak. It's like, why are you allowing this? Like, what do you think?

[Kate Lister]

It would have been so easy to not have done that. Like, that could just not have happened. And yet he allowed his friend to behave like that.

[Helen Carr]

Exactly. So Isabella gets her own back. She 100% gets her own back. Not against Gaveston, because during the time of when Edward and Gaveston were most active state that what you will. Isabella got on quite well with Piers Gaveston. He seemed to be quite. They hung out, they seemed to relate very well. And Isabella and Edward, you know, when she was 16, she had her first child, so they didn't have sex when she was very young. That was more of a courtship. It was a prolonged courtship. Her childhood and her virginity was Protected until she was at the point where she was physically able. And about 16, she had Edward III. There was their firstborn son. And it was after Gaveston's death, however, that Edward and Isabella did seem to get closer. They started to spend more time together without Gaveston there. There was a period of time where Edward didn't have somebody who was, you know, his right hand man who was very close to him. And he and Isabella had lots of children. There was a period where they were in France together. And apparently they were lying in bed together naked one night when a fire, one of their bed caught fire, which happened in history because people used to have candles around the room. And Edward allegedly whisked Isabella into his arms and they ran out naked. It was all very romantic. And on the same trip, he was late to a meeting with her father because he was kept up all nights with his wife. And so it seems that they were getting on quite well at this point. But then everything started to go wrong.

[Kate Lister]

Did she have anything to do with bump in Gaveston off or is that just a happy coinky dink?

[Helen Carr]

It's just happy, happy coincidence. I don't think she would have been that happy about it, though. I think she genuinely quite liked him. But I also think she was so young at this point, she didn't really have as much. Her political agency was not quite developed by this point. In fact, it wasn't even really developing. I think that started to come after Galveston's death, after she became a mother, because in the Middle Ages, as a queen, your major job was to provide an heir, have the babies, you have the babies. And so you became important when, and taken very seriously and respected and revered when you had a son.

[Kate Lister]

Okay, so we've got a very, very, very young bride, like, even by the standards of the time. And I know they weren't having sex, but even then there must have been a few people like, jeez, what the fuck's going on here? Anyway, they're married. This weird situation with Gaveston, whatever the hell was going on, seems to have been brought to a very abrupt and stabby end. Edward and Isabella seem like, okay, we're flying now, babies are plenty, everyone's getting along. There seems to be some sexy time. What goes wrong?

[Helen Carr]

Well, Edward's need for another male partner, somebody who is going to be at his level, who he's going to treat as a confidant, who is going to support him, I think emotionally. I think he looked for male emotional support, not he, you know, he didn't look for it from his wife. And so he falls into the arms of Hugh Despenser the Younger. There's two Hugh Dispensers in this period, which gets very confusing. There's a Hugh Dispenser the Elder and Hugh Despenser the Younger. Hugh Despenser the Younger is a part of Edward's court, but he, he manages to find himself in the role of Chamberlain. So that means that he's constantly with the King. In his most intimate moments, he's within his chamber, he's helping him with his. His sort of day to day routine of getting dressed, of washing of. There's lots of opportunity to get very close to him, to tell him the things that he thinks he probably wants to hear. And Hugh Dispenser manages to leap up the echelons of the nobility and become an incredibly important figure at court. And it all goes particularly wrong when Dispenser starts to get grabby. He's a very greedy man in a way that makes Piers Gaveston look like a relative pussycat.

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[Helen Carr]

Yeah. So Hugh Dispenser does awful things like he goes after the widows of men who. Of noblemen, so women who are left with, with land and money, he goes after them, he coerces them effectively out of their wealth and if they're not coerced, he starts using threats in the record this, he's a complete shit. He's up there with King John and wow, one of the threats he's using is against one noblewoman. Dubious whether it's carried out, that he would break her arms and legs to get so she would sign off her land. And there's all of these testimonies from noble women just after 1322, so about five years before Edward is overthrown of women, talking about how Hugh Despenser the Younger has treated them and the things that he has threatened. And there's one woman in particular who is Edward II's niece, called Elizabeth. And she is imprisoned with her children because Judah Spencer wants her land. And until she agrees and the King is behind all of this, he's like, yep, it's fine, do what you want. And until she agrees to give up her land, he will keep her imprisoned. And this happened and Edward allowed it to happen. But the biggest mistake that Dispenser made and Edward was that he allowed Despenser to go after his wife's land, Isabella, the Queen's land in Cornwall. And that is the woman that you did not want to rub up the wrong way.

[Kate Lister]

No, that is rule number two of how to be a good royal favourite. Number one, don't be too grabby. Ingredients. Shut up. Number two, respect the Queen 100%. And he did not. I didn't realise he was this much of a shit, to be completely honest. I'm wondering, what did Edward see in him? But tell me what his relationship was like with Isabella, who by this point is no longer 10 years old and very, very naive.

[Helen Carr]

No, she's not. She is acting with a lot of political agency, she's acting with queenly aplomb, she's doing the job, she's on the small council with the King, she's getting involved with the politics, she's getting involved with decision making and she seems to be doing a brilliant job. There's an amazing episode where she goes to Leeds Castle in Kent and she effectively besieges the castle after the Lady Badlesmere, who is at the castle and she's on her own without her husband, defends it. So there's this amazing episode of two women in a siege over Leeds Castle. So Isabella does all of that because of the civil war happening in England, she's working for her husband, she's making quite crafty decisions on behalf of Edward and she's on his side. But then after this, after Dispenser starts to grab land and then he goes after the Queen's land, it all goes wrong. Because whilst this is happening in England in the Middle ages, in the 14th century in particular, there is this ongoing war with France. And this war, the Hundred Years War, as it gets later called, hasn't quite started by this point, but the seeds of it are there. And it's all over Gascony, which is Aquitaine, land that the English hold in France. And there's always bickering over the border. And Edward falls out with Isabella's brother, Charles iv, the King of France at the time. And Isabella is basically. It's all taken out on Isabella. All of her French household are exiled or put in prison, and she's told that it's her fault because she's French. It becomes all a bit sort of xenophobic and bigoted. And so the French are punished because there's a fallout between Edward II and the King of France. But then Isabella is sent over to France to try and broker things. She's trying to kind of repair things. But by this point, Dispenser has already been after her land in Cornwall and she's already pissed off. So when she goes over to France, things are looking okay, like, she seems to be doing a good job with her brother. She's doing her best. She seems to be still on Edward's side. But then Edward makes the grave mistake of, instead of going over himself, just seal the deal that Isabella has brokered. He sends his son.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, right. I thought you could say Hugh. Right, okay. Or.

[Helen Carr]

It's not that you would not do that. No. He sends his son, but what he does is he gives Isabella the greatest tool in her box. It's like she's now got her son in her arsenal. She's got the future heir to the throne in France with her. And also, she famously meets again at the French court, the exiled nobleman who went against Edward II and was imprisoned but managed to escape. Already sounding pretty hot is Roger Mortimer. And there are so many kind of later sort of bonkbusters that are written about Isabella and Roger Mortimer in this period that make Roger Mortimer out to be this absolute Lothario. And I kind of think that he's as close as you would maybe get in the Middle Ages. Any sort of contemporary descriptions of him are like, he's tall, he's handsome, he's good with a sword.

[Kate Lister]

One of them.

[Helen Carr]

Don't know if that's a euphemism. He's one of them.

[Kate Lister]

Okay.

[Helen Carr]

And what he does is he encourages Isabella to. Or they plot together. And I think he is encouraging her to overthrow dispenser to accrue an army while she's in France with her son in her possession. Go back to England and get rid of Dispenser for goods.

[Kate Lister]

Damn, that's ballsy, isn't it? That is a hell of a power move. Was it just Hugh that they wanted to get rid of? I mean, might someone have floated the suggestion of, like, oh, possibly get rid of Edward while we're at it, or we just focused on Hugh Dispenser at this point?

[Helen Carr]

Well, the thing is, it's sort of hedging your bets. I think it was always a case that, okay, well, he might have to follow through and get rid of the King as well, because if we don't, he's probably then gonna knock us off and that's not gonna look good. But I think at this point, they don't say that in so many words because it's treason. So that if they're getting rid of Hugh, that's not treason. That's something, you know, in the same way that the nobility, when they got rid of Gaveston, Edward had to forgive them for it because they masked it, that Gaveston was the treasonous one by overstepping his right. In the same way as Hugh Dispenser. But if they start saying, we're going to knock off the King, then that is 100% treason. Head gets cut off immediately.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, you can't lead with that, can you? That's.

[Helen Carr]

You can't lead with it.

[Kate Lister]

Be a foolish error. Right.

[Helen Carr]

It might have been sort of like a bit of a whisper and a murmur and a nudge, wedge, wink, wink to each other, but it certainly wasn't something that they openly intended. So at this point, Edward and Dispenser are getting a bit nervous. They know something's going on. They start finding out that Isabella's met up with Mortimer and there starts to be rumors about Isabella and Mortimer's relationship. And even though there is nothing explained, explicit, to say that they were having sex, Edward does make a reference that they were. So he says in a letter that she is in a relationship with mortal. She's familiar with Mortimer, out and inside the bedchamber, so that they are effectively in cahoots, sort of together, outside in the political sphere, but they're also sleeping together. But Isabella starts writing back to Edward and not writing back to the Pope as well. He's starting to get involved. He's all worried that this royal marriage is going to collapse. And she's saying, I will not go back to England whilst Dispenser is there. And what's interesting about this is it's always been framed by historians in the past that she's being deliberately obtuse, that she is being sort of sassy, that she doesn't. She's. She's determined, she, you know, she's this she wolf. She's described as a she wolf. But what she says is that she's afraid for her life. And that has always been taken as being her being a bit hysterical, as so many references to women in history are, you know, women at a woman's destiny. She's being hysterical. But I don't think Isabella was being hysterical. I think she was telling the truth. I think she was afraid for her life. I think she was deeply afraid of what he would do to her. And so this, in some ways, I think, was a normally very compliant queen, a very compliant wife, somebody who was. Wanted to be on the side of her husband but was respected for who she was. I think she felt like this was probably her only option. And I think she was genuinely intimidated by Hugh Dispenser and as we know as women, what it's like to be around a man, a dangerous and aggressive man, and how terrifying that is.

[Kate Lister]

And he sounds like he's got form. He's been violent before, hasn't he?

[Helen Carr]

Yeah, exactly. And what would stop her? Because her husband's not gonna protect her, because he's already proved that he's not gonna do that. So I think she's absolutely right in the sense that she knows where she's safe, but she also knows she can't stay there forever because her brother's not going to support her forever to stay there. So she does. She manages to accrue an army full of mercenaries she broke as a marriage agreement between her son and the future queen of England, Philippa of Hainault. And she uses the Count of Hainault's men and she forges an army that she leads. This is where the she wolf title has come in. It's very misogynistic lens to look at this woman who's stepping outside of her social expectation, her rank and her femininity. But she invades England and she goes straight after. Guess who? Hugh Despenser.

[Kate Lister]

Hugh Dispenser. You'd love doing it as well, wouldn't you? Just like write shit. Here we go. What does she do?

[Helen Carr]

She's great. So she marches on England. She finds out pretty quickly she's got a lot of support because he is a shit. From a lot of the members of the nobility, including Edward's half young, much younger half brothers. They support her on her quest to get rid of Dispenser. Not the king, importantly, but Dispenser.

[Kate Lister]

No, no, no. Just that person that's near him a lot.

[Helen Carr]

Exactly. Just that guy. There's a trope in, particularly in medieval and actually probably later in 16th, 17th, even 18th century history, where it's like, we can't target the king, we're just going to target the people around the king because they're the ones that are in the wrong. And that's kind of what it starts like. And so they go after dispensers, they go to London where he's really unpopular. It becomes a bit of a bloodbath. It becomes a manhunt. Anyone associated with dispensary is treated appallingly. They behead dispensers. I think it's his secretary or his.

[Kate Lister]

Treasurer or something far that lads that you've gone.

[Helen Carr]

Yeah, they go a bit far. But Londoners love it in the Middle Ages, they just love a chance to get really nasty. They're just like, oh, yeah, let's do some beheading. They start, like, dragging people out of houses, getting Their heads locked off, and they send them to Isabella as a gift. And it's like it all gets a bit gnarly. And then Isabella chases Edward and Dispenser, so she follows them all the way to Bristol and they jump in a boat together and that's trying to find where to go. And it all. You can see where it's going by this point. Eventually, she has the elder Hugh Dispenser's father captured and he is executed rather brutally. But then finally the Edward II and Hugh Dispenser are found in Wales and they're brought back to England, to Hereford, and Hugh Despenser is imprisoned and he's given a sort of mock trial, like a show trial. And that's where in the record, all of the testimony comes out against everything that he had done. And of course people are going to start being a bit like, it's a little bit like this recent salt path pylon. Everyone's like, oh, yeah. And, and also. And, and they did. And they did this and he did this. So you're gonna, you know, you have to take these things, obviously, with a slight pinch of salt, because guess what? Even in the 14th century, people left a pile on. But it does, you know, shed light on the fact that he treated women with extraordinary brutality.

[Kate Lister]

He is a complete shit.

[Helen Carr]

He's a complete shit.

[Kate Lister]

Like, that's pretty clear, isn't it? Like, no one's. No one's gonna be too upset. Apart from the King.

[Helen Carr]

Yeah. The King is sort of put into custody and he's taken off to Kenilworth Castle and he just waits there to. He's in Hunter House Arrest, effectively, and his son sort of takes over as a king in waiting. He's Prince, but he's leading Parliament. And Isabella is keen to get Dispenser down to London because she wants his execution to be like, big centre stage. This is like the Nebworth of executions and Dispenser knows that and so he starts trying to starve himself to death. And Isabella's like, no, no, no, no, not on my watch. So she doesn't force feed him, but what she does do is just accepts that she's going to have to have him executed at Hereford. So Hugh Dispenser is given the most brutal execution in medieval history.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, dear, what did they do?

[Helen Carr]

There's actually a depiction, a chronicler took it upon themselves to have his words illuminated and there is an image of what goes on. So they have Dispenser, as far as we can tell, strung up On a very tall ladder. So you have to climb up another ladder next to him to do your work. And he's hanged, he's drawn, and then he's quartered. All of his entrails are taken out. And he's up on this ladder. He's sort of strung up. And they wake him, wear a crown of thorns. He's completely naked and he's watching all these entrails come out. And then they take off his penis and they throw them all onto a furnace below. And then his penis is severed and his balls and they are also thrown onto the furnace below before he's beheaded and quartered.

[Kate Lister]

So they weren't fucking about with that, were they?

[Helen Carr]

No, they like to make sure he.

[Kate Lister]

Was dead and then some. Wow.

[Helen Carr]

Okay, so Isabella knew how to make a statement, didn't she?

[Kate Lister]

That's not a woman you want to piss off, is it? Wow.

[Helen Carr]

No, no. And she was then sort of. I'll have my lounge back and some more, thank you very much.

[Kate Lister]

Was she there at the execution just like with a great big foam finger? Just like way.

[Helen Carr]

What does she like in gladiators? Yeah, that's actually a good question. I'm not sure. I think she was there.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, you would be, wouldn't you? Just.

[Helen Carr]

You want to make sure just to. Yeah, just make sure there's no stick that in last minute escape attempt. No.

[Kate Lister]

I'll be back with Helen and Isabella after this short break.

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[Kate Lister]

What about Edward? He's in jail. His lover is now in pieces. Sorry about that.

[Helen Carr]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

And he's not the king anymore. They went, they took a vote. Who, who thinks Edward should be allowed to be king? No one. Right. Okay, you're out. What happens to him? I do know the story of what's supposed to have happened.

[Helen Carr]

Oh, yes. So this is something we can definitely talk about. So he relinquishes his crown. So I think Isabella and Morton, just useless, isn't he?

[Kate Lister]

He just caves in absolutely everything.

[Helen Carr]

So this is what we're told. We don't know how much argument, how much threat, what he's being told as to why he relinquishes it. But he does agree that his son will take over from him as king because Isabella and Mortimer understand that if they then allow Edward to carry on being king, it's just going to be like, well, then Mortimer gets knocked off. Oh, and then someone knocks off the next friend and then sort of like it's just going to be like whack a mole for Edward's favorites. So they know that that's not going to work. What they can't do is a king has never been murdered in this way before in plantage history. And so they make it the big deal that Edward III knew. Edward III is, is now King of England and his father has agreed to relinquish his, crowned his son. And he's, he's gone off, he's under house arrest in Kenilworth. There's an escape attempt made and they go, okay, well, this isn't going to work, so we're going to move you. And they move him to Barkley Castle, which is in Gloucestershire. Nice castle. We filmed there for history here. And it was a bizarre morning. Went into the room where Edward was allegedly kept and there was like an actual skull on the table there. We were like, wow, this is. You can tell we're not an English heritage anymore.

[Kate Lister]

Really gone all out.

[Helen Carr]

It was like, you could tell it was privately owned, that's for sure. And they had a small cell, effectively, but it was believable that it was possibly where the king was kept or it's quite a small room. Because it is in the keep. So it's not like it's on the walls of the castle. He would be easily surveyed and monitored, allegedly that night. All we know is to the record, it said the king died in September. I think it's the 27th of September, from a fatal happening, aka an accident.

[Kate Lister]

Yes, look at that. Something fatal happened. Yes, we'll say no more about this.

[Helen Carr]

Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, nobody questions it. It's like, okay, but he is killed. So the rumor, which Berkeley Castle like to perpetuate because they actually go in through him and there is a poker on the wall and it's like, oh, okay, right, behave. Exactly. The rumour is that he was killed by anal penetration with a red hot poker. So stoked in fire.

[Kate Lister]

What do you think about that, Helen? What do you reckon?

[Helen Carr]

I think it's rubbish.

[Kate Lister]

It's rubbish.

[Helen Carr]

It's complete rubbish. So this comes from. The original source for this is the Brooks Chronicle. And what the Brook Chronicle does is this long sort of history of Britain and it starts much, much earlier. It starts sort of with the, with the Romans and a lot of mythology and Arthur, and it carries all the way through. And what the Brookhoniker is looking for is a way of showing how Edward was killed without a mark on his body. But that is a way that his readers are going to be amused, let's say.

[Kate Lister]

Okay.

[Helen Carr]

And, well, he does this by. It's mimetic. So he's. It's literary. It's a mimetic, literary trend. So he's borrowing episodes from mythology and other moments of the past that the same death occurs. And he's taking that from other material, other reading material. So the most famous one, which is probably a direct reference, is the death of Edmund Ironside, who, luck would have it, was killed whilst going to the toilet because a statue was holding a bow and arrow and it accidentally let go of the bow and arrow and the arrow went up, evident Einstein's backside. And that was apparently happy because.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, that's a. That's a perennial problem, that one. That's. How many times has that happened?

[Helen Carr]

Yeah, we have to. We have to watch. We have to watch those statues. And what is likely. And there's all. There are other references to this type of death by anal penetration. And it's likely that the Brook Chronicler chose that as a way of killing off Edward II in his chronicle. There has been an assumption that it has been in reference to him as a sodomite, that he was having sex with men.

[Kate Lister]

And so he has a homophobic slur thing.

[Helen Carr]

It's a homophobic slur. But actually the only reference to that occurs much later with Christopher Marlowe in his play of Eddie ii, where there is much more made of the sexuality of Edward ii. So it's not the same thing. The poker was not necessarily a case of referencing him being. Having sex with men and it being something that's phenomenally homophobic, but it was actually more to do with what is my reader going to find amusing and how can I kill off this king. What I think probably happened was that Roger Mortimer knew that there were increasing attempts to rescue Edward. He had a problem on his hands. Edward was rescued, Mortimer was dead, everything was overthrown. He was getting incredibly power hungry, as was Isabella. And with being power hungry, you also get hyper anxious, you get more dangerous. And I think Mortimer gave the order that Edward was killed and I think he was probably smothered in his sleep. That's what I think happened.

[Kate Lister]

Much more efficient.

[Helen Carr]

Much more efficient.

[Kate Lister]

Much more efficient. Yeah, yeah.

[Helen Carr]

Also probably what happened is the prince is in the tower while we're at it.

[Kate Lister]

Moving on swiftly. Gaveston is in pieces. He's long gone. Dispenser's gone. Edward smothered, not pokered to death. What happens to Isabella and Mortimer, just to round off this rather sorry tale?

[Helen Carr]

I know it's a good. There's a sort of motif that I use in my book for this particular period of the 14th century, and it's the wheel of fortune. And the wheel of fortune was a very frequent popular motif that was used in manuscript illumination and literary tradition as well. And it's this idea that there is the goddess Fortuna who spins the wheel in relation to your life and your lived experience. And sometimes you're at the top of the wheel and then she'll spin it and you'll go crash at the bottom. And that is very much what you see with the major players in this part of the 14th century. So Isabella and Mortimer, by the death of Edward ii, are up there, they are having a great time, they're having a pretty open relationship. They're spending a lot of time in Mortimer's newly acquired lands, particularly around the Welsh border. They are living a life of power and decadence and they love. They love to dress up. Isabella is big into Arthurianisms and literature and there is a fascinating example of them dressing up as Arthur and Guinevere or Lancelot and Guinevere and kind of this bit of cosplay going on. And they just, I think, had a Great time. But then they make the ultimate fatal error. They step too far, as a lot of people in positions of power, when they get power hungry do. And what they did is they decided to seek out those who weren't loyal. So they started to get paranoid. And paranoid people are dangerous people. So they start to seek out people who might be against their regime, against their regency. Because Edward is young, but he's not that young. He's able to rule, but he's not allowed to. His mother and Mortem are effectively doing it for him. And people as. There's whispers that people are getting irritated with this, so they start to go, well, who's against us? And so they start to try and trap people. And one of the people that they do effectively trap is Edmund, Earl of Kent, who is the half brother, the much younger half brother of the now deceased Edward ii. And what they do is they spin a yarn that through multiple sources, Edward II is still alive and he's. He's hiding out and he needs help to escape. He's still alive, but he's being kept. He's been kept elsewhere. I think it's at Berkeley Castle. And he is there, but he needs to escape. And so there starts to be this sort of paper trail between the Archbishop of York and then there's Edmund, Earl of Kent, and there's people that they're accruing goods for Edward II to escape from his imprisonment. And Edward, Earl of Kent goes. Edmund, Earl of Kent goes to the castle to see if he can see his brother. And he does. He's shown a man eating, so. So he sees his brother eating some food. He sees somebody who he thinks is his brother. He doesn't talk to him, he sees him, but he doesn't actually engage with him. Bit dodgy. But what he fatally does is he writes a letter to who he thinks is his brother and says, let me help rescue you and restore you to your throne. And what he's done is given Isabella and Mortimer what they need. He's given them evidence that he's a traitor. And so what they do is they.

[Kate Lister]

In writing.

[Helen Carr]

Yeah, because he's good in writing. And what they do is they arrest him. They've tricked him, they arrest him, he's imprisoned and then he's executed. But what's so appalling is that this is an innocent guy and he's also royal. This is one of the sons of Edward the First, and he's got Roger Mortimer, like a comparative layman, who's ordering his execution. It's like no, no, no, no, no. And they can't find anyone who's willing to do the deed. The Netman's are not executing a prince, no way. I fancy my place in heaven, thank you very much. And what they do is they find a prisoner, say somebody who, he was basically just a peasant that was imprisoned for a petty crime. And they say you get your freedom if you do the job. And so this, this poor Prince Edmund, Earl of Kent is, is out waiting for six hours for somebody to be found to do the. Who will agree to do it. And then eventually this sort of, this serf effectively comes out from the back.

[Kate Lister]

The work experience kid comes along.

[Helen Carr]

Yeah. And, and does, and does the job and it's just so unbelievably cruel and merciless and Edmund is begging, he's begging the whole time, please don't do this, please. I, please forgive me. I've up like. And they're just like, no. And this in turn the wheel spins and Roger, Mortimer and Isabella find themselves crushed beneath it because Edward third, the king who's just been sat back, trapped in his kingship by his mother and her lover, is like, you stepped over the line. And he creates this coup. He's gone too far and he creates a coup with his best mates. Parliament's being held at Nottingham, in Nottingham Castle. And they come up through the underbelly of Nottingham Castle because I think even to this day people have said there's still some tunnels that you can go through the, the rock because the castle's quite high up and they go through there and then Edward lets these, these men into the castle and they go up to where Isabella and Mortimer are having a private meeting and they burst in, drag Mortimer out and he's given a quick show trial and then he is hung naked as a thief, somebody who tried to steal the responsibility of kingship. And then you move into the age of Edward iii, who does a much better job at keeping everyone on side.

[Kate Lister]

Wow. That. I mean, I can see why you're interested in this particular period of history. That was a lot of drama.

[Helen Carr]

So much drama. I mean it writes itself.

[Kate Lister]

Such, such awkward family Christmases going on there. Did Isabella live a long life?

[Helen Carr]

So she was sent off to an abbey, she sent off to Berkehamstead. And she did live. She was, yeah, of course, she was like, you can't get in trouble, off you go. So, yeah, she did live into a nunnery. She left him. She did live a longer life and she wasn't allowed any sort of political, you know, she wasn't allowed any reigns of power.

[Kate Lister]

Went. Went too far.

[Helen Carr]

She went too far. But her son did name his first daughter after her. So, you know, maybe they were still friends to an extent on speaking terms.

[Kate Lister]

Helen has been wonderful to talk to.

[Helen Carr]

I knew it would be likewise.

[Kate Lister]

And if people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you?

[Helen Carr]

They can find me on Instagram if you search Helen Carr, author, I'm there. I always forget my personal handle, which is terrible, isn't it? For my, for my publicity. My publicity is there going God's sake. You can also find all of my books in all good bookshops online. It's everywhere. Search scepterdial and that will, that will come up. I'm also on substack so people can find me and follow me on substack and I'm trying to do lots of frequent posts about the 14th century, about the Middle Ages, and also a few videos of recommendations and things. And that's about as far as I go in relation to online content at the moment.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, what's the title of your history hit documentary?

[Helen Carr]

It's called Edward ii, England's Worst Monarch.

[Kate Lister]

Amazing. Thank you so much. You have been an absolute treat.

[Helen Carr]

Thank you.

[Kate Lister]

Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Helen for joining me. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like, review and follow along wherever it is you get your podcasts. Coming up, we've got an episode on the Truth About Roald Dahl and we'll be asking, did Henry VIII really have an affair with Anne Boleyn's sister? Controversial subject, but if you would like us to explore a subject or if you just wanted to say hello, then you can email [e-mail] this podcast was edited by Tim Arstall and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddie Chick. Join me again. Betwixt the Sheets the history of Sex Scandal in Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.

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