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Despencer. He assumed the title, but his tenure thereof was short-lived
indeed. Like Gaveston, he was a favourite with Edward II., and, like him,
rightly or wrongly, peculiarly obnoxious to the people of England, who
attributed much of the King's folly and extravagance to the influence which
they had over him. And Edward seemed to take every opportunity of
exasperating them by publicly shewing his attachment. Rich presents,
even the very regal jewels, were showered upon them.
The troubled lives and tragic ends of these unfortunate brothers-inlaw
are incidents so well known to all readers of history, that there is no
need here to enter into them at any length.
Mr. Wadmore, in his paper, "Tonbridge
its
Castle and its Possessors and
Lords," in Kent Archceologia (vol. xvi.), says that Gaveston accompanied
his brother-in-law, the Earl of Gloucester, to Scotland, and was present
at Bannockburn. Stowe, however, records his death as happening before
that date.
At any rate, the confederate barons, under Thomas of Lancaster, soon
rid the country of him, for seizing him at Scarborough Castle, whither
Edward sent him for safety during his absence from York, they sent him
to Dedington, near Oxford, where he was captured and eventually beheaded
on Blacklow Hill, close to Warwick, 1312, by Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick,
whom he had formerly, in a jeering way, called " the black hound of
" Arden," leaving one daughter, Joane, who died young ; and the widow
married Sir Hugh de Audsley, who assumed the earldom of Gloucester,
with the possession of the Tonbridge estates.
Hugh Le Despencer, whom Henry had made constable of the Tower,
was then made chamberlain in his place. At first he was popular with the
people, "because they knew the King hated him." But Stowe says of
him that " he was in body very comely, in spirit proud, and in action most
" wicked," and speedily became, with his father, who was devotedly attached
to him, the object of suspicion and hatred. He was present with the King
in Scotland at the time of Bannockburn, and shared his flight.
In 1320, he and his father were banished, and, returning the following
year, were committed to the Tower by the King, but in 1322 were received
again into favour, the elder being made Earl of Winchester at York, where
the King held his Parliament at Easter. Two years after (1326) the
Queen, being now in open rebellion against the King, and with Mortimer,
"of great power under her son's banner, persecuting his father," caused
the elder Le Despencer to be " drawn and hanged in his armour at Bristol."
And soon after, the younger Le Despencer, being " brought bound before her
by " certain Welchmen," at Hereford, he was hanged on a gallows thirty feet
high, and beheaded and quartered, Simon Reding being hanged on the
same gallows, but " ten feet lower." He left several children, by whom his