Titans of History

Frederick’s conflict with his former guardians overshadowed European politics for half a century. On one level the gigantic struggle was simply a personality clash between the piously intellectual Pope Gregory IX, elected in 1227, and the witty and worldly Frederick. When Gregory IX excommunicated Frederick in 1227 for apparently malingering rather than going on crusade, Frederick’s decision to go anyway, and in the process crown himself king of Jerusalem, did little to improve relations.

At the heart of this bitter conflict lay the question of who would dominate Christendom: pope or emperor. With each side buoyed up by a messianic belief in his cause, Italy became the battleground of papal troops and imperial forces. Missives, manifestos, papal bulls and insults flew across Europe. Frederick was again excommunicated. If he was the Wonder of the World to his admirers, he was henceforth Beast of the Apocalypse to his enemies. Two different popes, Gregory IX and Innocent IV, fled Rome, the former dying in exile. In 1245 Innocent IV fired the papacy’s ultimate salvo: he announced the emperor was deposed. For the next five years it was all-out war. In the end it was death, not the papacy, that defeated Frederick. Fighting on against the almost insurmountable twin obstacles of excommunication and deposition, Frederick was regaining ground in both Italy and Germany when he died suddenly in 1250.

ISABELLA & ROGER MORTIMER

1295–1358 & 1287–1330

The tongue devises mischiefs, like a sharp razor, working deceitfully. You love evil more than good, and lies more than honesty.

Psalm 52, read to Roger Mortimer by his executioner

They were the couple—an adulterous French queen and her English baronial lover—who invaded England, overthrew her husband the king, and ruled the country for three tumultuous years. Mortimer was the first son of Edmund Mortimer, 2nd Baron Wigmore, and his wife, Margaret de Fiennes, second cousin to Eleanor of Castile, the wife of Edward I. His grandfather had been a close ally and friend of King Edward I, and in return for their service to the crown the family had enjoyed royal patronage ever since. Roger married Joan de Geneville, the daughter of a neighboring lord, in 1301, when he was just fourteen, her eventual inheritance, coupled with his own, helping to swell the already vast family estates in the so-called marcher lands on the border of England and Wales.

In 1307, King Edward I died and his son became Edward II. Cowed by his terrifying father as a boy, young Edward, though outwardly imposing, was timid and easily led—a weakness that others eagerly exploited. First to do so was Piers Gaveston, a onetime companion to the prince who may have been his lover and was certainly his best friend. The king showered him with privileges. In 1308, Edward traveled to France to marry Isabella, sister of the king of France. Isabella was a stunning creature, described by one contemporary as “the beauty of beauties.” But her life was fraught with humiliations and triumphs, and in the end Edward’s neglect led her to betray him.

Isabella was the only surviving daughter of Philip IV of France. When she was no more than an infant, Philip proposed her as the future wife of the heir to the English throne, with the aim of easing tensions between the two countries. The marriage duly took place in Boulogne in 1308. Isabella was only twelve years old; the lackluster Edward II was twice her age.

Edward II was tall, fair-haired, handsome—and almost certainly homosexual, favoring as he did a succession of young, good-looking male courtiers. Before he even returned to England after his marriage he had passed on Philip’s wedding gifts to Piers Gaveston. Although Isabella bore him four children, Edward rarely showed her any affection, leading her to describe herself as “the most wretched of wives.” Furious and resentful, the country’s barons eventually rebelled in 1312, and Gaveston was executed by order of the earl of Lancaster. To their dismay, a voraciously greedy, ambitious and ruthless new favorite took his place—his name Hugh Despenser. In 1306, Hugh had married Eleanor de Clare, a granddaughter of Edward I, and through the king’s patronage he secured ever more wealth, land and influence, becoming royal chamberlain in 1318 and one of the richest nobles in the kingdom. Isabella feared and loathed the thuggish Despenser.