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From: John Carmi Parsons < >
Subject: Amy Gaveston
Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1999 15:08:30 -0400 (EDT)


This morning I had a chance to give Jeff Hamilton's 1998 *Medieval
Prosopography* article a thorough read. For those interested, the title
is: "Another Daughter for Piers Gaveston? Amie de Gaveston, damsel of the
Queen's Chamber," *Medieval Prosopography*, 19 (1998), 177-86.

Herewith a precis.

Hamilton acknowledges that at the time he wrote his study of Piers Gaveston,
first published in 1988, he was unaware of J.G. Hunt's articles, but several
colleagues directed him to these articles. Hamilton begins by stating
straightforwardly that Hunt "certainly provides considerable circumstantial
evidence," but "in the end his argument remains unproved and unconvincing" (pp.
177-78) in so far as Amy's Clare descent is concerned.

Hamilton accepts the date 1 Nov. 1307 for Piers' marriage to Margaret de
Clare, and in fact notes from the vivid Clare heraldic illuminations on the
royal charter creating Piers earl of Cornwall, three months earlier, that
the couple may already have been betrothed by then. Hamilton then also notes
that during the 4 and 1/2 years of their marriage, Piers and Margaret were
often separated; she evidently did not accompany him when he went to
Ireland between June 1308 and June 1309, nor did she go with him on his
last period of exile to the Continent in 1311-12. This would have obvious
effects on the chronology of her childbearing (p. 178).

Hamilton acknowledges that it is not possible to insist definitively the
possibility that Margaret did conceive and bear at least one child prior
to the birth of her daughter Joan in January 1312. He emphasizes, however,
that "the important occasions of Gaveston's life... were all celebrated,
generally to excess, by the king...." (several examples follow). This was
also true of Margaret's delivery at York in 1312, which Hamilton dates to
12 January, but we hear nothing of any similar observance by the king of
the births of any other children to Margaret and Piers (pp. 178-79). In
Hamilton's words, "it is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine that
Margaret de Clare could have given birth at any point between 1307 and
1313 without some record of the birth surviving, particularly in the royal
wardrobe books or other exchequer accounts, or in contemporary
chroniclers' accounts" (p. 179).

Edward provided generously for Margaret and her daughter Joan in the years
after Piers' death, again as attested by the king's wardrobe accounts--but
we never hear of Amy in this connection in those accounts. Margaret was
in fact given a landed settlement by the king, equal in value to the
earldom of Cornwall, which she was to hold for life in compensation for
the loss of that earldom, and the king had Joan educated in the royal
convent at Amesbury and arranged her marriage to Thomas de Multon of Egremont.
Hamilton then asks, "If a second, legitimate, daughter existed, why was her
education not attended to? Why was no thought given to her marriage?" (p. 180).
Joan's intended marriage to Multon of Egremont was "incomparably better than
the actual marriage that took place between Amie de Gaveston and John de Driby,
a mere king's yeoman" (p. 180).

Hamilton notes that the inq. taken after Joan's death that gives her age
at death as 15 was in fact made seven years after she died, and suggests
(what is probably true) that in that connection the difference between the
age of 13 (her true age at death) and 15 "would have been insignificant to
the impanelled jurors" who probably had never even seen her since she had
lived in seclusion at Amesbury (pp. 180-81). Hamilton also cites the
disparate ages reported in two different sets of Inqs. post mortem for
Margaret's suriving legitimate daughter Margaret Audley, as Paul Reed has
already posted to the list (p. 181).

Hamilton has little trouble in demolishing Hunt's interpretation of the
passage in the Bridlington life of Edward II. Hunt took the words "cum tota
familia sua," used by the chronicler to describe Piers' arrival at York, to
mean "a family of man, wife, and two or more children, far better than a family
of man, wife and only child." This is an inexcusable lapse. Any medieval
historian with the slightest knowledge of medieval Latin usages should know
that the word "familia" was not used in the Middle Ages to denote "family" in
the modern sense; it meant "household," "retinue," "train" or the like. In
fact, Hamilton points out, Margaret de Clare had reached York long before
Piers himself arrived, so he was not traveling with his wife in any event.
Hamilton also suggests, very plausibly, that it was the imminent birth of his
first and only child by Margaret that fatally lured Piers back to England from
his exile--a far more potent lure than if the child born at York in Jan.
1312 was a second-born child (p. 181).

Hamilton admits the fine of 1334 as proving Amie was a daughter of Piers
Gaveston, but sees it as important that the fine does not also identify
her as Margaret de Clare's daughter. He feels that Amie was probably born
before Piers married Margaret, and may even have been brought up in
Margaret's household after they married (p. 132).

The rest of the article merely discusses the evidence for Amie's life after
Piers' death. She occurs in Queen Philippa's household late in 1331 (I think
this is right; what actually appears on the page is 1321, but this may be a
misprint), and received the grants from the queen and king of which we are
already aware. She apparently did not marry John de Driby until 1338, and
she may well have been dead by May 1340 (p. 183). That her marriage was of
such short duration leads Hamilton to question (p. 185) whether Amie was really
the mother of Alice de Driby [though I would certainly think it possible
that her early death was the result of childbirth, particularly if she had
not married until she was in her 30s as would have been the case if she
was indeed born before Piers' marriage in 1307]. However Hamilton notes
that when John de Driby died, the jurors returned as his heir not a daughter,
but his sister Alice (p. 185). Hamilton notes, however, the existence of
an Alexander de Gaveston, clerk, living in 1313, who might have been yet
another illegitimate child of the notorious Piers (p. 185).

I have nothing further to add to this account nor to my earlier remarks on
the matter, which I would think has been well enough discussed here. We are
all now aware of each others' views, and it seems clear enough that not many of
will be persuaded to any different beliefs than we already harbor.

John Parsons

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