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Updated: July 25, 2025
His chief helpers in this work were the two Despensers, father and son, both named Hugh.
Next day the fleet cast anchor in the port of Orwell, and that same day the expedition was landed and marched to Walton, where it spent the first night on English soil. The gentry of Suffolk and Essex flocked to the standard of the queen, who declared that she had come to avenge the wrongs of Earl Thomas of Lancaster and to drive the Despensers from power.
At Berkeley, he received from Maurice of Berkeley the keys of the stately fortress which was so soon to be the place of his last humiliation. Early in February, he was back at Gloucester, where, on February 11, he recalled the Despensers. Humphrey of Hereford, Roger of Amory, and a few other marchers managed to escape the king's pursuit, and rode northwards to join Thomas of Lancaster.
We shall see how the restored rule of the Despensers was blighted by the same incompetence and selfishness which had ruined their predecessors in power. The triumph of the Despensers proved but the first act in the tragic fall of Edward II. During the deliberations of the parliament of York, the truce with Bruce expired, and forthwith came the news that the Scots had once more crossed the border.
Bishop Stapledon, who had accompanied the queen to France, was so alarmed at the turn events were taking, that he fled in disguise to reveal his suspicions to the king. Thus England, already exposed to a danger of a French war, was threatened with the forcible overthrow of the Despensers and the reinstatement of Isabella by armed invaders.
For this Edward never forgave his cousin, and when, during the fighting which followed the recall of the Despensers, Lancaster was obliged to surrender after the Battle of Boroughbridge, Edward had his revenge.
God grant all peace!" Philippa wondered who the other men were, and whether Mother Joan alluded to her own ancestors. She knew nothing of the Despensers, except the remembrance that she had never heard them alluded to at Arundel but in a tone of bitter scorn and loathing. "Maybe," continued the blind woman, in a softer voice, "he was no worse for his strange opinions. Some were not.
Conspicuous among these was the Gloucester earldom which, from the days of the valiant son of Henry I. to the death of the last male Clare at Bannockburn, had played a unique part in English history. Both the Despensers desired to be earls, and the younger Hugh wished that the Gloucester earldom should be revived in his favour.
Among Harclay's motives for treating with the Scots had been his distrust of the Despensers. As generals against the Scots and as administrators of England, they manifested an equal incapacity. Their greed and insolence revived the old enmities, and they proved strangely lacking in resolution to grapple with emergencies.
He immediately took the field against his rebellious barons, and a furious civil war ensued. He soon, too, found a new favorite, or, rather, two favorites. They were brothers, and their names were Spencer. They are called in history the Spencers, or the Despensers.
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