Parliament of 1327: Difference between revisions

The Parliament of 1327, which sat at Westminster between 7 January 1327 and 9 March 1327, was instrumental in the transfer of power from Edward II to Edward III. Edward II had become increasingly unpopular with his nobility through the course of his reign, predominantly due to his promotion of his favourites at court, the patronage he devoted to them, and his perceived ill-treatment of his nobles. By 1326, even his wife despised him, to such an extent that towards the end of that year she joined with Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March in France—whom her husband had previously exiled—probably entering into a relationship with him, and ultimately, the following year, invading England with him to depose her husband. She had travelled to France with her son, Edward III, Earl of Chester and he returned with her. Almost immediately, Edward II's response was beset by betrayal, and he eventually abandoned London and fled west, probably to raise an army in Wales or Ireland. However, he was soon captured and imprisoned.

Isabella and Mortimer summoned a parliament in order to confer legitimacy on their regime. This began gathering at Westminster palace on 7 January, but little could be done in the absence of the King. Young Edward was proclaimed "Keeper of the realm" (but not yet King), and a parliamentary deputation was sent to Edward II to ask that he allow himself to be brought to parliament. He refused, and the parliament continued without him. The King was accused of various offences, ranging from his promotion of favourites to destruction of the church, and that, fundamentally, he had betrayed his coronation oath to the people. These were known as the "Articles of Accusation." The City of London was particularly aggressive in its attacks on Edward II, and its citizens may have helped intimidate some of those attending parliament into agreeing to the King's deposition, which occurred on the afternoon of 13 January.

The lords sent another delegation to the King to inform him of his deposition. This they did on or around 21 January, effectively giving Edward an ultimatum that if he did not agree to hand over the crown to his son, then the lords in parliament would give it to somebody outside the royal family. King Edward cried, but agreed to their conditions. The delegation returned to London and Edward II's son was proclaimed King Edward III immediately. He was crowned on 1 February 1327; his father remained imprisoned, being moved around to prevent any attempted rescues; he died—presumed killed—in November that year, probably at Mortimer's orders. Crises continued for him and Isabella, who were de facto rulers of the country, partly as a result of his own greed, mismanagement, and mishandling of the new King. Edward III led a coup d'état against Mortimer in 1330, overthrew him, and began his personal rule.

Background

Mortimer and Isabella's invasion route in 1326.

Edward II had many court favourites, such as Piers Gaveston and Hugh Despenser the Younger who were unpopular with Edward's nobility. Gaveston had been killed during an earlier noble rebellion against Edward in 1312, while Despenser, a contemporary chronicler said, was "deeply hated by the nobles of the kingdom." Edward too was disliked, not only because of his favouritism, but his general abuse of the noble class (for example, he made repeated demands for unpaid military service from them). His popularlity further declined with his execution of his cousin, Thomas, Earl of Lancaster in 1322 (who had led the earlier rebellion against the King. Edward was thus able to enrich himself immensely at he expense of Thomas' heirs by confiscating the Lancaster estates. Historian Chris Given-Wilson expressed the view of the nobility as being that, "under Edward II and the Despensers...no landholder could feel safe." By 1325 their feelings toward Edward seem to have been shared by his wife, Queen Isabella. By now the King had already been previously threatened with deposition on two occasions (1310 and 1321). Hostility towards Edward was general. S. B. Chrimes and A. L. Brown ascribed this to Edward's "cruelty and personal faults," while W. H. Dunham and C. T. Wood commented in 1976 that "very few, not even his half- brothers or his son, seemed to care about the wretched man" and how, as such, none would fight for him. One contemporary chronicler described Edward as rex inutilis, a "useless king."

In 1325, Isabella had been sent to Paris by her husband on a diplomatic mission, accompanied by their son, Edward, Earl of Chester. This was Edward's political response to the French invasion of the Duchy of Aquitaine, then an English royal possession. Soon after, they both effectively disclosed their marital estrangement in a series of three-way written exchanges with the French King, Charles V, and the Pope. They were both scathing in their remarks and keen to score political points with them. Relations between Edward II and his wife swiftly deteriorated. Edward proceeded to confiscate Isabella's lands and properties and disbanded her retinue. Their mutual ill-feeling was exacerbated by the political influence wielded by Despenser in England. Isabella felt he was trying to drive her away from the King; as a result, she had entered into a—possibly physical— relationship with the exiled Roger Mortimer in December 1325; by summer the following year, the King was considering a divorce. At the same time both Isabella and Edward refused to return to England, even though the King repeatedly requested them to do so. The King was also angry with his son for refusing to break with Isabelle and Mortimer.

Isabella's diplomatic mission to Charles V had been successful. Now in Paris, she became the centre of the opposition in exile. She was joined by Roger Mortimer, but also included Edmund of Woodstock, Earl of Kent, , Henry de Beaumont, John de Botetourt, John Maltravers and William Trussell, all united by their hatred of the Despensers. Although the French King refused to countenance an invasion of England, the rebels gained the Count of Hainaut's backing in return for the prospective marriage between the Earl of Chester and the Count's daughter, Philippa of Hainault.

It was clear to King Edward from around February 1326 that Isabella and Mortimer intended to invade, and there were a number of false alarms. As a defensive action, ships over a certain size and tonnage were forbidden from leaving English ports, in many cases they were pressed into royal service. Edward declared war on France in July; Isabella and Mortimer invaded England, and landed in Suffolk on 24 September 1326. Within the week, King Edward had suffered mass desertions from his camp, and, accompanied by Despenser, fled west. Prestwich described the King's support as collapsing "like a building hit by an earthquake"; weak already, "even before the invasion, along with preparation, there had been panic. Now there was simply panic." Their efforts to raise another army were to no avail; on 16 November 326, Edward and Despenser were captured near Llantrisant in South Wales. Isabella and Mortimer had invaded to rid England of their mutual enemies—the Despensers; the swiftness with which the entire regime collapsed forced them to wield executive power until they managed to arrange for a successor to the throne. Edward was incarcerated by the Earl of Lancaster and known supporters of the King were murdered by mobs, particularly in London. Despenser's father, the Earl of Winchester, had already been hanged in Bristol on 27 October; Despenser himself was executed in Hereford less than a month later. On 26 October Edward, Earl of Chester—not yet in possession of the Great Seal— was proclaimed guardian of the realm by Isabelle and Mortimer: "by the assent of the whole community of the said kingdom present there, they unanimously chose [Edward III] as keeper of the said kingdom." They did not yet call him King. On 20 November he received the Great Seal (which had been captured with Edward II at Monmouth), and with his he was announced his father's heir apparent.

Summoning of parliament

Isabella and Roger Mortimer

The parliament that eventually met in London on 7 January 1327 had been summoned by Isabella and the Earl of Chester, in the name of King Edward,—on 28 October the previous year. It was originally intended to gather on 14 December 1326, but writs were issued on 3 December—still in the name of the King—deferring the sitting until early the next year. The legality of the original summons and the later writ have been described as "highly questionable," and the parliament itself has been described as "a show of pseudo-parliamentary regularity." Contemporaries were uncertain as to what exactly they were observing: "a few chroniclers called it a parliament, others did not." Edward II supposedly still mandated as King, although his "most beloved consort Isabella queen of England" and his "firstborn son keeper of the kingdom"—what has been described as a "nominal presidency"— were his conduits. This was supposedly whilst he was still abroad, having, as the new regime advertised, supposedly fled England (he was, in fact, by now imprisoned in Kenilworth Castle). The King was recorded as desiring a "colloquium" and "tractatum" (conference and consultation). with his lords "upon various affairs touching himself and the state of his kingdom." It was also, we are told, Edward II himself who postponed the sitting until January, "for certain necessary causes and utilities."

The main problem for the new regime, says historian Ian Mortimer, was what exactly to do with Edward II. Mortimer seems to have seriously considered a state trial for treason, with the expectation of a "guilty" verdct and thence a death sentence. He and other lords debated the issue with other ords at Isabella's Wallingford Castle just after Christmas, but they could not agree. The earls were of one mind that Edward had failed his country sufficiently enough that only his death could heal it; the attending bishops, on the other hand, held that, whatever his faults, he was an annonted king, and had been annointed by god. This presented Isabella and Mortimer with two problems. Firstly, the argument of the bishops would likely be popularly taken as bringing the wrath of god down upon the country. Secondly, the problem with trials was that there was always the danger of an unacceptable verdict being delivered—particularly as few contemporaries believed that an annointed King could even be charged with treason. This would lead to an invidious position whereby the rebels would not only have to release Edward, but restored.

Attendance

It is likely that attendance at the January 1327 parliament mirrored that which had been postponed in December, although it may not have been a complete assembly. The 3 December writs summoned, as Lords Spiritual, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, fifteen English and four Welsh bishops and nineteen abbots. The Lords Temporal were represented by the Earls of Norfolk, Kent, Lancaster, Surrey, Oxford, Atholl and Hereford; two, the Earls of Winchester and Arundel had been executed at the end of 1326. Forty-seven barons, twenty-three royal justices, and a number of knights and burgesses were also summoned from the shires. Leading rebel, Sir William Trussell, was appointed procurator, or Speaker. Although procurators were not new, the purpose of Trussell's new role set a constitutional precedent, as he was specifically ordained to speak as one man, on behalf of parliament generally: "who cannot disagree with himself and, [therefore], shall ordain for all."

Articles of accusation

Renunciation of allegiance was transmuted from feudal defiance to the will of the commonality, and the King was rejected not by his vassals but by his subjects.

Maud Clarke

After some lords and bishops had written a set of "Articles of Accusation" against Edward II the preceding evening, on the morning of the 13th January many nobles, churchmen, knights and burgesses swore to support his heir apparent, the 13-year-old Edward Earl of Chester, as king and to enforce the constitutional limitations of the Ordinances of 1311 at the Guildhall. The King was accused of being personally incapable of ruling; indulging false counsellors; preferring amusements government; neglecting England and losing Scotland; dilapidating the church and imprisoning the clergy; and, all in all, breaking his coronation oath to his subjects. That afternoon, Parliament assembled formally, and Roger Mortimer read the Articles. Under pressure from a mob of Londoners led by Thomas Wake other figures spoke in support of Isabella, crucially including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Walter Reynolds. Parliament then proclaimed Edward III king.

Londoners were to play a key role during the Westminster parliament in January 1327 in ensuring that any remaining supporters of Edward II were intimidated and overwhelmed by events.

Envoys had been sent to Kenilworth to see Edward II before parliament sat,; they were Adam Orleton, Bishop of Hereford and Sir William Trussell, the parliamentary proctor (or speaker), and their mission was to persuade Edward to return with them and attend parliament. They failed in this mission: Edward had not just refused to come, but had refused robustly. The envoys arrived back at Westminster on 12 January; parliament had been sitting five days, by then, but could do nothing until they returned with the King. Constitutionally, this was the case, as historically a parliament could only pass statute with the King in attendance; this time, however, "Edward's opponents were not prepared to let this stand in their way." As such, Orleton—emphasizing how Isabella was afraid of her husband—put the question to the assembled lords, whom they would prefer as their king, Edward I or his son. There seems however to have been no immediate rush to depose or acclaim, for Orleton proceeded to suspend proceedings until the next day (presumably to allow the lords a night to dwell upon the matter). On the same day, the Mayor of London, Sir Richard de Betoyne and the Common council, wrote to the lords asking them to make the Earl of Chester King, and to depose Edward II for failing to uphold "his oath and his Crown;" this may well have been at Mortimer's instigation following the lords' earlier half-hearted response. However, the City of London also presented other petitions to the lords regarding the future King, for example requesting that the new King should be governed by his Council until it was certain that he understood his coronation oath and regal responsibilities. This petition was accepted; another, requesting that the King should hold an annual parliament at Westminster until he reached his majority, was not. The following day Mortimer made a speech to the re-assembled lords in which he said that he had been appointed to announce the decision of the nobles—"what had been ordained"—which was that Edward II would abdicate and his son take the throne as

...the whole community of the realm there present, unanimously chose [Edward] to be guardian of the said kingdom...and govern the said kingdom in the name and in the right of the Lord King his father, then being absent. And the same [Edward] there assumed the rule of the said kingdom on the same day in the form aforesaid, and began to exercise those things which were rightful under his privy seal, which was then in the custody of his clerk Sir Robert Wyville, because he did not then have any other seal for the said rule...

Close Rolls, 26 October 1326

Edward IIII: "that Sir Edward...should have the government of the real and be crowned king." The French chronicler Jean Le Bel described how the lords, on account of how the country could not remain unruled, together decided to document Edward II's "ill-advised deeds and actions" in order to create a legal record. This was duly presented to parliament, which body declared "such a man was unfit ever to wear the crown or call himself King." It was the codified list of royal ill-deeds—probably drawn up by Orleton and Stratford personally—that became subsequently known as the Articles of Accusation.

Deposition of Edward II

The different, yet similar, titles bestowed upon Edward at the end of 1326—all of which acknowledged his unique position in government yet none of which called him King—reflected an underlying constitutional crisis, and one which contemporaries recognised. It hung on the question as to how power was transferred between two living Kings, a situation—until 1327—never before encountered in English government. This situation, a historian has commented, to contemporary perception "upset the accepted order of things, threatened the sacrosanctity of kingship, and lacked clear legality or established process." In fact, it is uncertain whether Edward II abdicated or was deposed. Legally, it was noted (in the Close Rolls on 26 October), that Edward had "left or abandoned his kingdom"; certainly this was the case as presented by Isabella and Mortimer. They also, however, claimed that Edward II was deliberately—and provocatively—holding parliament in contempt and considered it a treasonous assembly: they were, it has been said, "experienced in such manipulation."

Edward II of England

Twentieth century historiography remains divided upon the issue. Barry Wilkinson, for example, considered it a deposition—but by the magnates, rather than parliament—whilst G. L. Harriss referred to it as an abdication, believing that "there was no legal process of deposition, and kings like...Edward II were induced to resign.".Edward II's position gas been summed up as being offered "the choice of abdication in favour of his son Edward or forcible deposition in favour of a new king selected by his nobles."

Whether Edward II resigned his throne, was forced from it, or a combination of both, it was on 13 January that the crown legally changed hands before an assembly of "all the baronage of the land." There were two elements to the process. Firstly, the commons took an oath in the City of London's Guildhall. Then, all concerned parties made their to Westminster (parliament having been suspended until that afternoon) where the lords formally acknowledged that Edward II would no longer be King. A number of orations were made; Mortimer made a speech and various bishops presented sermons—Hereford, for example, spoke of how "a foolish king shall ruin his people," and, reported a contemporary, "he dwelt weightily upon the folly and unwisdom of the king, and upon his childish doings." All the speakers reiterated the articles of accusation, which were again re-presented to the Lords in their entirety. The common theme of all the declaration made that day was that they all concluded by offering Prince Edward as King, if the people approved him. The crowd in attendance, meanwhile had been effectively "whipped...into such fervour" by " dramatic outcries at appropriate points in the orations" from Thomas wake at strategic intervals, and also, perhaps the influence—and perhaps intimidation— of a large company of unruly Londoners.

At the close of the day, said Valente, "the electio of the magnates received the acclamatio of the populi, 'Fiat!'," and may have been followed by a chorus of Gloria, Laus et Honor, and possibly oaths of homage from the lords to the new King. Assent to the new status quo was not universal: the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops of London, Rochester and Carlisle abstained from the day's affairs in protest.

Edward II's response

The articles accused the king, the fount of justice, of a series of high crimes against his country. Instead of good government by good laws he had ruled by evil counsel. Instead of justice he had sent noblemen to shameful and illegal deaths. he had lost Scotland and Gascony and he had oppressed and impoverished England. In short, he had broken his coronation oath—here treated as a solemn contract with his people and country—and he must pay the price.

David Starkey, Crown and Country: A History of England Through the Monarchy

The final parliamentary act on 13 January was the organisation of a deputation to visit Edward II at Kenilworth and inform him of his subjects' decision to withdraw their homage from him. This group consisted of the Bishops of Ely, Hereford and London, and some laymen, including the Earl of Surrey (representing the lords) and Trussle (to represent the knights). They left some time on or shortly after Thursday 15 January, and the official renouncing of fealty—by William Trussle on behalf of parliament— to Edward took place there between the 21st and 22 January; the now ex-King protested (mildly, though) and wept. Baker's chronicle says that the delegates equivocated, "adulterating the word of truth" before coming to the point of their mission. Edward was offered the choice of resigning in favour of the Earl of Chester, or being deposed and leading to the chance that the throne would be offered to someone not of royal blood. Edward seems to have taken comfort from the fact that his own son could be still succeed him, and it is possible that there was an acknowledgment of memoranda drawn up between the delegation and Edward noting what was said. Geoffrey le Baker's chronicle says that at some point towards the end of the meeting Thomas Blunt (Edward's Steward) broke his staff of office in half and sent the Royal Household away. The delegation had returned to Westminster by 25 January, by which date, Edward III was already officially being referred to as King, and his peace had been proclaimed at St Paul's Cathedral the previous day. The new King was publicly proclaimed such shortly afterwards; it is also probable that discussion began to take place on the thorny question of what to do with Edward II.

Subsequent events and aftermath

Recall of parliament

Still a minor, Edward III was crowned on 1 February 1327, although the true ruler of England remained Roger Mortimer (and who created himself Earl of March in October 1328). Edward's coronation was shortly followed by the recalling of the January parliament (which had never, in fact, been dissolved). Strictly, a new parliament should have been called as there was a new monarch, but this failure of process is doubtless explained by the sheer novelty of the situation the political class found itself in.

This parliament returned to the more usual business of parliaments, particularly in hearing a large number (forty two) petitions on behalf of the community to the King and council. These ranged from confirmation of the acts against the Despensers and those in favour of Thomas of Lancaster, to the reconfirmation of the Magna Carta. There were also many ecclesiastical petitions, and those from the shires dealt mainly in annulling debts and ammercements of both individuals and towns, as well as the usual requests for the King's grace regarding perceived false judgements in local courts. The commons as a body drafted the petitions they presented, and codified them in an indented enrolment ("to attest to their genuineness" compared to those they received but never presented). By returning to normal parliamentary business, it was demonstrating the legitimate nature of Mortimer and Isabella's new regime, and both its continuity from that of Edward II and overturning the wrongs that he had done.

Also in this parliament, the dead Earl of Lancaster's brother Henry was restored to his family titles and estates. The deposed King was referred to only obliquely in official record from then on, for example, as "Edward his father, when he was king." Isabella and Mortimer were careful to try and prevent the deposition from tarnishing their reputations, and they went to the trouble of not just obtaining Edward II's ex post facto agreement to his removal, but then publicising the fact that he did agree with it. Their problem was that this effectively involved having to re-write a piece of history that many people were actively involved in and had taken place two weeks earlier.

Later events

Edward II, meanwhile, was still imprisoned—in "perpetual prison," as it was described— at Kenilworth, and it seems there may have been attempts to free him, with the result that he was moved to the far more secure Berkeley Castle in early April 1327. Plotting continued, and he was frequently moved to other places. Having been returned back to Berkeley, Edward died there on the night of 21 September; historian Mark Ormrod has described this as "suspiciously timely." Edward's almost-certain murder removed a rival and a target for restoration for good, from Mortimer.

The deposition of Edward II "exemplifies the feudal view of the tie of fealty, which really persisted for two centuries after the Conquest; namely, that if a lord persistently refuses justice to his man, the bond is broken and the man may, after openly "defying " his lord, make war upon him."

Alfred O'Rahilly, 1922.

It was not long before further crisis occurred, this time caused by the central position at court of Roger Mortimer. Notwithstanding Edward's coronation, Mortimer, not him, was the country's de facto ruler. No sooner than the next parliament—held at Westminster in September 1327—the King was accused of not living off his own, that his council did not advise him sufficiently, and that there was still illegality and disorder throughout the realm. Mortimer himself occupied his energies in getting rich and alienating people, but after the English army was soundly beaten by the Scots at the Battle of Stanhope Park and the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton which followed it in 1328) only worsened his position. Perhaps most importantly, his relationship with the new King, never close, was rapidly deteriorating; Mortimer did little, though, to rectify this situation and continued to show Edward disrespect. Mortimer's position continued to decline. Michael Prestwich as described him as a "classic example of a man whose power went to his head," and that Mortimer had the greed of the Despensers and the olitical sensitivity of Gavascon. Edward married Philippa of Hainault in 1328, and they had a son in June 1330. This led Edward to remove Mortimer from government: accompanied and assisted by close companions, Edward launched a coup d'étatwhich took Mortimer by surprise at Nottingham Castle on 19 October 1330. He was hanged at Tyburn and Edward III's personal reign began.

Long-term impact

The historian Chris Bryant argues that it is not clear whether these events were driven by parliament, or merely happened to occur within parliament. However, he suggests that it was significant that Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer thought it necessary to have parliamentary support. Claire Valente has said that while "the deposition was not revolutionary and did not attack kingship itself" it was also not "necessarily illegal and outside the bounds of the 'constitution," even though "modern historians have often treated it that way." The question of parliament's involvement, she says, is fundamental, and it is a question made harder to examine by the varying nomenclature given it by contemporaries. Some described the gathering as being merely a royal council, while others called it a parliament in the King's absence, or a parliament with the Queen presiding, or one that was summoned by her only, or one summoned by her and her son. Dunham and Wood suggested that "political success, rather than legal process" enabled Edward's deposition. Similarly, the deposition itself is able to be assigned to various parties: "that the magnates alone deposed, that the magnates and people jointly deposed, that Parliament itself deposed, even that it was the 'people' whose voice was decisive." Either way, says Valente, Edward II's deposition was a "crossroads" for parliament, between it merely acting under a collective magnatial authority to actually being responsible as a corporate body of estates acting in unison.

The parliament of 1327 is considered to illustrate how contemporaries—aware that deposition was an unknown and unpopular concept in the political culture of the day—began almost immediately re-casting events as an abdication instead. It has been commented that "few chroniclers lamented the deposition of Edward II...but the fact of deposition itself caused immense anxiety.; it was an event as yet unheard of in English history.

Edward's deposition was important in later history because it "set the pattern of procedures and arguments that would be followed in subsequent depositions" of the ruling monarch. The 1327 articles of accusation were drawn upon sixty years later during the series of crises between King Richard II and the Lords Appellant. When Richard refused to attend parliament in 1386, Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester and Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury visited him at Eltham Palace and reminded him that—per ""the statute by which Edward [II] had been adjudged"—a King who did not attend parliament was liable to deposition by his lords.

Parliamentary proceedings were traditionally drawn up contemporaneously and shortly after enrolled onto the parliament roll by clerks. The Roll of 1327 is notable because "despite the highly charged political situation in January 1327, [it] contains no mention

Title page of the earliest published text of Edward II (1594)

of the process by which Edward II ceased to be king." It focusses, in fact, only on the reassembling of parliament under Edward III in February, after the deposition of his father. It has been suggested that this is the reason the parliament roll for the January 1327 sitting is no longer extant: that, having been threatened with deposition himself, Richard II had the roll destroyed when he recovered personal power in 1388. Richard considered Edward's deposition a "stain which he was determined to remove" from the royal family: the means he chose by which to do so was to propose Edward's canonization. The deposition of Richard II by Henry Bolingbroke in 1399 drew direct parallels with that of Edward, which by 1399 was considered an "ancient custom," which had set a legal precedent, although an ill-defined one. Says Valente, though, Isabella and Mortimer's regime change was "not nearly as successful" as Henry's was to be.

Edward's deposition was still being used as political propaganda during the troubled later years of James I in the 1620s. The King, by then very ill, was playing an increasingly peripheral role in government, and his favourite, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham became proportionately more powerful. Henry Yelverton publicly compared Buckingham to Hugh Despenser on account of the former's penchant for enriching his friends and relatives at the expense of the King's patronage. Says Curtis Perry, "contemporaries applied the story [of Edward's deposition] to the political turmoil of the 1620s in conflicting ways: some used the parallel to point towards the corrupting influence of favourites and to criticize Buckingham; others drew parallels between the verbal intemperance of Yelverton and his ilk and the unruliness of Edward's opponents."

The Parliament of 1327 was the last and only parliament before the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542 to summon Welsh representatives, although they did not actually sit in parliament.

Cultural depictions

Christopher Marlowe was first to dramatize the life and death of Edward II, with his 1592 Edward II (also The Troublesome Reign and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England, with the Tragical Fall of Proud Mortimer). Marlowe particularly emphasises the importance of parliament in Edward's reign, from his original taking of the coronation oath (I.1.72), to his deposition (V.1.84).

See also

• List of Parliaments of England
• Parliament of England

References

Bibliography

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• Given-Wilson, C.; Brand, P.; Phillips, S.; Ormrod, M.; Martin, G.; Curry, A.; Horrox, R., eds. (2005). "'Introduction: Edward III: January 1327'". British History Online. Parliament Rolls of Medieval England. Woodbridge. Archived from the original on 17 February 2018. Retrieved 27 February 2018. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
• Goodman, A. (1971). The Loyal Conspiracy: The Lords Appellant under Richard II. Great Britain: University of Miami Press. ISBN 0870242156. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Gransden, A. (1996). Historical Writing in England: c. 1307 to the early sixteenth century. London: Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0-415-15125-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• H. M. S. O. (1892). Calendar of the close rolls preserved in the Public Record Office, 1323-27. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode. OCLC 234988394. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Harriss, G. L. (1994). "The King and his Subjects". In Rosemary Horrox (ed.). Fifteenth-Century Attitudes: Perceptions of Society in Late Medieval England (1st ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 13–28. ISBN 978-0-521-58986-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Hartrich, E. (2012). "Urban Identity and Political Rebellion: Henry of Lancaster's Revolt, 1328–29". In Ormrod, W. M. (ed.). Fourteenth Century England. Vol. VII. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. pp. 89–106. ISBN 978-1-84383-721-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Holmes, G. A. (1955). "Judgement on the Younger Despenser, 1326". The English Historical Review. 70: 261–267. OCLC 2207424. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Holmes, G. A. (1957). Estates of the Higher Nobility in Fourteenth Century England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. OCLC 752712271. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
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• Le Baker, G. (2012). Barber, R. (ed.). The Chronicle of Geoffrey Le Baker of Swinbrook. Translated by D. Prest. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. ISBN 978-1-84383-691-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Le Bel, J. (2011). The True Chronicles of Jean Le Bel, 1290-1360. Translated by Bryant, N. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 978-1-84383-694-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
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• Ormrod, W. M. (2006). "The Sexualities of Edward II". In Dodd; Musson, A. (eds.). The Reign of Edward II: New Perspectives. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer. pp. 22–47. ISBN 978-1-903153-19-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
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• Palmer, F. B. (2007). Peerage Law in England: A Practical Treatise for Lawyers and Laymen, with an Appendix of Peerage Charters and Letters Patent (repr. ed.). New Jersey: The Lawbook Exchange. ISBN 978-1-58477-748-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
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• Phillips, J. R. S. (2006). "The Place of the Reign of Edward III". In Musson, A.; Dodd, G. (eds.). The Reign of Edward II: New Perspectives. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer. pp. 220–233. ISBN 978-1-903153-19-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
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• Roskell, J. S. (1965). The Commons and Their Speakers in English Parliaments, 1376-1523. Manchester: Manchester University Press. OCLC 268504. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
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• Valente, C. (1998). "The Deposition and Abdication of Edward II". The English Historical Review. 113: 852–881. OCLC 2207424. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Warner, K. (2014). Edward II: The Unconventional King. Stroud: Amberley Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-1-4456-4132-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Waugh, S. L. (2004). "Edmund [Edmund of Woodstock], first earl of Kent". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 8 March 2018. Retrieved 8 March 2018. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |subscription= ignored (|url-access= suggested) (help)
• Wood, C. T. (1972). "Personality, Politics, and Constitutional Progress: The Lessons of Edward II". Studia Gratiana. XV: 524–525. OCLC 1022771976. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)