The subprior of St Mary’s, Robert of Greystanes, is particularly hostile,
claiming that Louis stumbled his way through his own ordination service
(‘By St Louis, the man who wrote that word had nocourtoisie!’).^40 Similar
accusations can be found in the work of other chroniclers, such as Robert
of Reading and Adam Murimuth, who also agree that Louis was club-
footed or lame. Yet Murimuth gives the game away when he sneers
that Louis was deformed‘like so many Frenchmen’(‘sicut sunt multi
Francigenae’).^41 Suddenly, we can see the xenophobia that lay behind so
much of the hostility towards Louis–as it did, indeed, towards the other
members of his family.
By the end of 1320, it was clear that the rise of a new group of
favourites, in the form of the Despenser family, had destroyed any hope
of continued peace between Edward II and the earl of Lancaster. As early
as January 1321, the king was ordering a large number of his leading
subjects not to join armed assemblies or to make secret treaties (in other
words, not to join forces with the opposition).^42 Although it is highly
unlikely that Henry was part of the host that eventually defeated
Lancaster at Boroughbridge, the Beaumonts did benefit, a great deal,
from the fall and execution of their greatest opponent. The Statute of
York swept away the last remnants of the Ordinances, whilst Henry’s
brother, Louis, moved to claim the confiscated land within the Durham
palatinate.^43 However, the Scottish campaign that Edward undertook, in
the immediate aftermath of victory, proved to be even worse than an
anticlimax. King Robert pursued Edward into northern England, hoping
to take him by surprise and capture him at Byland. Edward was forced to
improvise desperate plans with Henry and his other principal command-
ers, and, in the end, this was just enough to secure his escape. His
humiliation was still not complete, though, since the queen remained
stranded behind enemy lines, and it remains uncertain how she got to
safety. It has been suggested that this incident lies at the beginning of the
break-down in the royal marriage, which became all too obvious a few
years later.^44 The king was certainly very angry about all of this, and was
looking for a scapegoat. It seems that, even before the Byland incident,
he had taken out some of his frustration on Henry.^45 Moreover, a few
months later, he roundly criticized Louis for not doing more to turn the
(^40) Mildly adapted fromHistoriae Dunelmensis scriptores tres, 118.
(^41) Adae Murimuth continuatio chronicarum Robertus de Avesbury, de gestis mirabilibus regis
Edwardi Tertii, ed. E. M. Thompson (London, 1889), 25.
(^42) Calendar of the Close Rolls: Edward II, 4 vols. (Nendeln, 1971), iii, 355.
(^43) English Historical Documents, 1189– 1327 , no. 103; and Fraser’s article in theODNB.
(^44) For these‘narrow escapes’in context, see Phillips,Edward II, 429–31.
(^45) See, for example,CDS, iii, no. 770.
152 Hubris and Nemesis (c. 1311–1356)