c. 1286–1326
Hugh Despenser the Younger was an English nobleman whose rise as the favourite of Edward II helped drive the political crisis of the king’s final years. Through his marriage to Eleanor de Clare, one of the co-heiresses of the Gloucester estates, Despenser acquired major interests in south Wales. From the late 1310s he gained extraordinary access to the king and used royal favour, legal pressure and force to enlarge his lands and influence at the expense of neighbouring Marcher lords.
Opposition to the Despensers produced the Despenser War of 1321, when a baronial coalition forced father and son into temporary exile. Edward II defeated his enemies in 1322 and restored the Despensers, after which Hugh became still more powerful within government. His aggressive acquisition of estates and control of access to the king made him a principal target of Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer’s invasion in 1326. Captured after Edward’s regime collapsed, Despenser was condemned and executed at Hereford in November 1326.
Michael Jecks places Despenser’s dominance and the violence surrounding Edward II’s court behind several linked mysteries, including Dispensation of Death, The Prophecy of Death, The Malice of Unnatural Death and The Oath. Maurice Druon’s The She-Wolf presents the political destruction of Edward II’s regime, while Carol McGrath’s The Stone Rose uses the same factional struggle from a different fictional perspective.
