Moreover, as he rose in importance, he was entrusted with more and
more important duties and responsibilities. As early as 1300, he was
placed in control of the important border castle of Jedburgh.^87 Six years
later, he may even have been involved in the capture of one of the English
king’s most determined opponents, Robert Wishart, bishop of Glasgow.
Perhaps this is why Edward ordered that the bishop’s estates beyond
the Forth should be entrusted to Henry, along with another castle at
St Andrews.^88 In short, Henry earned much more than the fees and robes
of a household banneret, which came his way in 1300.^89 Indeed, a couple
of years later, he was granted the sum of £200, although this was to help
him pay off some of the debts that he had accumulated in the king’s
service.^90
During these long years of hard graft under Edward I, Henry had
been careful to cultivate a good relationship not only with the ageing
king but also with his son and heir, the future Edward II. It is fortunate
that we are able to discern something of this as early as 1304–5. During
this period, the new prince of Wales wrote to his young stepmother,
Margaret of France, asking her to intercede with the king on Henry’s
behalf.^91 As a result, Edward I’s death did not even mark a hiatus.
Henry’s ascent gathered pace after that. Indeed, by the end of the
1320s, Henry had acquired a large number of estates, stretching across
the whole of the English crown’s territories: from the heartlands of
Tackley, in Oxfordshire, to faraway Gascony.^92 It is easy to write this
off, as so many critics would do later, as a sign of Edward II’s unsuitable
profligacy towards his‘foreign favourites’. Yet it is clear that there was a
political purpose behind the steady stream of patronage thatflowed in
Henry’s direction. The new king was trying to tie Henry, asfirmly as
possible, to the Anglo-Scottish war. In other words, in this as in so
much else, he was following in his father’s footsteps. We can see this,
most clearly, in the proclamation of Henry as joint warden of Scotland
(^87) CDS, ii, no. 1164. (^88) Ibid., ii, no. 1780.
(^89) See theLiber quotidianus contratulatoris garderobae: anno regni regis Edwardi primi vicesmio
octavo, AD MCCXCIX & MCCC, ed. J. Tophamet al. (London, 1787), 189, 192,
311, 324.
(^90) Calendar of the Patent Rolls: Edward I, iv, 73.
(^91) See J. S. Hamilton,‘The Character of Edward II: the Letters of Edward of Caernarfon
Reconsidered’, 16, inThe Reign of Edward II: New Perspectives, ed. G. Dodd and
A. Musson (Woodbridge, 2006). Henry was seeking life tenure of an estate held by
92 Westminster Abbey.
For an overview of the estates that Henry acquired, see Maddicott’s article in theODNB;
and also hisThomas of Lancaster: A Study in the Reign of Edward II(London, 1970), 230.
120 The Angevins and Athens (c. 1267–1311)