Fieschi Letter

The Fieschi Letter was written to Edward III in circa 1337 by a Genoese priest at Avignon, Manuele Fieschi (d. 1349). He was a papal notary and a member of the influential Fieschi family, who later became Bishop of Vercelli. It has been a source of controversy ever since a copy was discovered in 1878 in Montpellier, because it claims that Edward II was not murdered but escaped.

Contents of the letter

The Fieschi letter begins by following the historically accepted story that Edward II fled to South Wales after the invasion of England by Isabella of France and Roger Mortimer before being arrested and imprisoned at Kenilworth Castle and Berkeley Castle in 1326.

But according to Fieschi, when the king heard that he was to be killed at Berkeley Castle he changed clothes with a servant. Using this disguise he reached the gate and escaped by killing the gate-keeper. He then went to Corfe Castle where he remained for 18 months.

Edward is then said to have stayed in Ireland for nine months. He then crossed to the Low Countries and travelled to Italy, visiting the Pope in Avignon on his way through France.

Edward is then reported to have lived the rest of his life in monastic hermitages near Milan.

Provenance of the letter

The letter was discovered by a French archivist in the binding of an official register dated 1368 which had been the property of Gaucelm de Deaux, Bishop of Maguelonne, and was preserved in the Archives Departmentales d'Herault at Montpelier. It is still there today. The letter has been tested and is not a later forgery. Fieschi is a well known historical figure. He had several livings in England and knew the country though the letter shows a confusion between the rank of a knight and that of a lord.

Case of the supporters of the letter

No one doubts the authenticity of Fieschi's letter, only its veracity, and it contains details that few people knew at the time and was written long before the accepted accounts of the flight, imprisonment and murder.

Using contemporary methods techniques, Dr Ian Mortimer (University of Exeter, UK) has been able to demonstrate in a peer-reviewed article in the English Historical Review (vol cxx, 2005) that it is 'almost certain' that Edward II did not die in 1327. He has subsequently published an on-line simplification of this argument, which is freely available. [http://www.ianmortimer.com/EdwardII/death.htm] Note that Mortimer's research only proves that the news of Edward II's death in 1327 was false; it does not automatically follow that the Fieschi letter is what it purports to be.

Edward II knew that he had no support at home and never tried to regain the throne, especially after his son, Edward III, had removed Roger Mortimer. In the Italian town of Cecima, (75 km from Milan), there is a tradition that a king of England was buried there and there is an empty mediaeval tomb said to be the place of his burial before his body was repatriated to England by his son.

The elaborate funeral in Gloucester of the person supposed to be Edward II may have been that of the gate-keeper. Many local dignitaries were invited to view the body from a distance, but it had been embalmed and may have been unrecognisable. For the first time a carved wooden effigy of the dead king was carried through the streets rather than the body on a bier.

Diplomatic documents also show in 1338 that Edward III travelled to Koblenz to be installed as Vicar of the Holy Roman Empire and there he met someone called William le Galeys, or William the Welshman, who claimed to be the king's father. (Edward II was born in Caernarvon and was the first English-born Prince of Wales.) Claiming to be the king's father would have been dangerous, and it is not known what happened to William. Some historians claim that the person was William Ockle.

Case of the opponents of the letter

Opponents of the letter say that the letter is an attempt by the bishop of Maguelone who had been sent to Germany to disrupt an Anglo-German alliance. The letter may therefore be an attempt to blackmail Edward III by undermining his position at the German court. Fieschi held various church appointments in England from 1319 and may also have been attempting to gain royal patronage.

References

*Ian Mortimer - "The Greatest Traitor: the Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, Ruler of England 1327-1330" (2003)
*Ian Mortimer - "The Perfect King: the Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation" (2006), especially [http://www.ianmortimer.com/histbiogs/perfect/PKapp3.htm appendix three]
*Alison Weir - "Isabella, She Wolf of France; Queen of England" 0712641947 (2005)

Notes