Download the full version of the textbook now at textbookfull.

com

Hugh Despenser the Younger and Edward II

Downfall of a King s Favourite Kathryn Warner

https://textbookfull.com/product/hugh-despenser-
the-younger-and-edward-ii-downfall-of-a-king-s-
favourite-kathryn-warner/

Explore and download more textbook at https://textbookfull.com

 Recommended digital products (PDF, EPUB, MOBI) that
you can download immediately if you are interested.

Richard II King of England 1377 1399 A True King s Fall

1st Edition Kathryn Warner

https://textbookfull.com/product/richard-ii-king-of-
england-1377-1399-a-true-king-s-fall-1st-edition-kathryn-warner/

textbookfull.com

Robert Service The True Adventures of Yukon s Favourite

Bard 2nd Edition Elle Andra-Warner

https://textbookfull.com/product/robert-service-the-true-adventures-
of-yukon-s-favourite-bard-2nd-edition-elle-andra-warner/

textbookfull.com

Running with Rhinos Stories from a Radical Conservationist

Edward M. Warner

https://textbookfull.com/product/running-with-rhinos-stories-from-a-
radical-conservationist-edward-m-warner/

textbookfull.com

The Oil Palm 5th Edition R.H.V. Corley

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-oil-palm-5th-edition-r-h-v-
corley/

textbookfull.com
Transforming Cybersecurity Solutions Using Blockchain
Rashmi Agrawal

https://textbookfull.com/product/transforming-cybersecurity-solutions-
using-blockchain-rashmi-agrawal/

textbookfull.com

A Textile Traveler s Guide to Peru Bolivia Cynthia Lecount

Samaké

https://textbookfull.com/product/a-textile-traveler-s-guide-to-peru-
bolivia-cynthia-lecount-samake/

textbookfull.com

What Gender is Motherhood?: Changing Yorùbá Ideals of

Power, Procreation, and Identity in the Age of Modernity
1st Edition Oyèrónk■■ Oy■wùmí (Auth.)
https://textbookfull.com/product/what-gender-is-motherhood-changing-
yoruba-ideals-of-power-procreation-and-identity-in-the-age-of-
modernity-1st-edition-oyeronke-oyewumi-auth/
textbookfull.com

Violent Python a cookbook for hackers forensic analysts

penetration testers and security engineers 1st Edition
O'Connor
https://textbookfull.com/product/violent-python-a-cookbook-for-
hackers-forensic-analysts-penetration-testers-and-security-
engineers-1st-edition-oconnor/
textbookfull.com

Storm in a Teacup The Physics of Everyday Life 1st Edition

Helen Czerski

https://textbookfull.com/product/storm-in-a-teacup-the-physics-of-
everyday-life-1st-edition-helen-czerski/

textbookfull.com
Introduction to the Practice of Statistics David S. Moore
& George P. Mccabe & Bruce A. Craig

https://textbookfull.com/product/introduction-to-the-practice-of-
statistics-david-s-moore-george-p-mccabe-bruce-a-craig/

textbookfull.com
Hugh Despenser the Younger and
Edward II
Downfall of a King’s Favourite
 Hugh Despenser the
Younger and Edward II
Downfall of a King’s Favourite

Kathryn Warner
 ­First published in Great Britain in 2018 by
Pen & Sword History
An imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
Yorkshire - Philadelphia
Copyright © Kathryn Warner, 2018
Hardback ISBN: 9781526715616
Paperback ISBN: 9781526751751
The right of Kathryn Warner to be identified as Author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying,
recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission from the Publisher in writing.

Typeset in Ehrhardt MT 11/13 By SRJ Info Jnana System Pvt Ltd.

Printed and bound in the UK by TJ International Ltd.

Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the Imprints of Pen & Sword Books
Archaeology, Atlas, Aviation, Battleground, Discovery, Family History,
History, Maritime, Military, Naval, Politics, Railways, Select, Transport, True
Crime, Fiction, Frontline Books, Leo Cooper, Praetorian Press, Seaforth
Publishing, Wharncliffe and White Owl.
For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact
PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED
47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk
or
PEN AND SWORD BOOKS
1950 Lawrence Rd, Havertown, PA 19083, USA
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.penandswordbooks.com
 Contents

Genealogical Tablesvi
A Note on Names/A Note on Chapter Headingsix
Introductionxi
Chapter 1 A Plethora of Hugh Despensers  1
Chapter 2 Early Life 9
Chapter 3 Knighthood and Wedding 18
Chapter 4 The New King 28
Chapter 5 Assaulted and Powerless  36
Chapter 6 A Death is an Opportunity  44
Chapter 7 A Three-Year Pregnancy 52
Chapter 8 Power at Last  63
Chapter 9 War, Exile and Piracy 73
Chapter 10 Executions and Extortion 85
Chapter 11 Magical and Secret Dealings 94
Chapter 12 Directing the War 111
Chapter 13 The Queen’s Hatred 124
Chapter 14 The Last Summer 135
Chapter 15 The End 144
Appendix 1 Hugh’s Children 158
Appendix 2 Hugh’s Itinerary  164
Abbreviations179
Endnotes180
Bibliography 207
Index 214
 (1) Bassets, Beauchamp, Despensers
Hugh Despenser Philip Basset (d.1271)
(d.1238) m(1) Hawise Lovaine
m.Maud FitzJohn
William Beauchamp (d.1301) Hugh Despenser, Aline m(2) Roger Bigod,
earl of Warwick (1217/23-1265) earl of Norfolk
(d.1298) m(1) justiciar (d.1306)
(1240s-1281)

Guy, earl of Patrick m(1) Isabella m(2) Hugh Despenser 'the Elder'
Warwick Chaworth (1263/6-1306) (1261-1326)
(1271/5-1315) (d.1283)
Maud(1282-1322)
m.Henry of Lancaster,
nephew of Edward I

Alina (d.1363) HUGH DESPENSER Isabella Philip Margaret Elizabeth

m.Edward THE YOUNGER (d.1334) (d.1313) (d.before 1330) (d.1335)
Burnell (C.1288/9-1326) m(2) m.Margaret m.John m.Ralph
m.Eleanor Clare John Hastings Goushill St Amand Camoys
(1292-1337)

Hugh d.1349
Edward d.1342
Gilbert d.1382
John d.1366
Isabella d.after 1356
Joan d.1384
Eleanor d.1351
Margaret d.1337
Elizabeth d.1389
 Leonor of Castile m(1) Edward I, king of m(2) Marguerite of France
(c.1241-1290) England (1239-1307) (1278/9 - 1318)

Thomas, earl of Norfolk (1300-1338)

Edmund, earl of Kent (1301-1330)

Joan of Acre (1272-1307) Eleanor 1269-98 Edward II 'of

m(1) Gilbert 'the Red' Clare Margaret 1275-c.1333 Caernarfon', king of
earl of Gloucester Mary 1279-1332 England(1284 - after 1327)
(1243-95) Elizabeth 1282-1316

Edward III b.1312

John b.1316
Gilbert earl of ELEANOR Margaret Elizabeth Eleanor b.1318
Gloucester (1292-1337) (1293/4-1342) (1295-1360) Joan b.1321
(1291-1314) m(1) Hugh m(1) Piers Gaveston m(1) John Burgh
m. Maud Despenser the (d.1312) (d.1313)
Burgh (d.1320) Younger m(2) Hugh Audley m(2) Theobald Verdon
(c.1288/9-1326) (d.1347) (d.1316)
m(3) Roger Damory
(d.1322)
 A Note on Names

H
ugh’s family name in the fourteenth century was always written
‘le Despenser’, and female family members were called ‘la Despensere’.
I have omitted the ‘le’ and ‘la’, and the ‘de’ in noble family names such
as de Clare and de Bohun.

A Note on Chapter Headings

A
ll the quotations in italics at the start of chapters are from Hugh’s own
letters (in French in the original). ‘We’, ‘our’, ‘us’ and ‘ourselves’ mean
Hugh himself; this was a convention of the era.
Visit https://textbookfull.com
now to explore a rich
collection of eBooks, textbook
and enjoy exciting offers!
 Introduction

Hereford, Monday the eve of Saint Katherine in the twentieth year of the
reign of our lord King Edward, son of King Edward (24 November 1326)

A
man tied to a poor, flea-bitten nag was brought into the town of Hereford
to the sound of tremendous cheering from the populace. He wore a
crown of sharp stinging nettles, and Biblical verses including ‘Why do
you glory in wrongdoing?’ from the book of Psalms were scrawled all over his
skin. Men riding alongside him blew bugle horns in his ears, people screamed
abuse and pelted him with rubbish, and an ally of his was forced to walk in front
of him carrying his coat of arms reversed as a sign of his disgrace. He must have
felt weak and faint: he had been refusing food since his capture in South Wales
eight days before, and even water as well, with the result that he was ‘almost
dead for fasting.’ [1] The procession which brought him to Hereford took over
a week to cover the 65 miles from South Wales, where he had been captured,
to show him off to as many people as possible. Numerous people watched and
cheered as he went past, delighted that the king’s corrupt and loathed favourite
had fallen at last.
In Hereford a list of charges was read out against him which ranged from
true to dubious to patently absurd, and to the surprise of no-one, the man was
sentenced to death by hanging, drawing and quartering without any chance
to speak in his own defence. The judge bellowed out ‘Go to meet your fate,
traitor, evil man, convict!’ His feet were attached to four horses which dragged
him through the streets. A gallows 50 feet high had already been constructed;
the verdict against him had been a foregone conclusion. Watching was the
queen-consort of England herself, Isabella of France (c. 1295–1358), and her
ally Roger Mortimer, lord of Wigmore (1287–1330), the prisoner’s deadliest
enemy. He was partially strangled on the high gallows, then tied to a ladder and
his private parts cut off and thrown into a fire, followed by his internal organs
and bowels, as he still lived. He was then lowered onto a table and finally given
relief from his terrible agony as his head was cut off. As a sign of his disgrace,
and as a punishment in the afterlife as well, his body was dismembered into
four pieces and sent to the towns of York, Carlisle, Bristol and Dover for public
display, and remained there for four years. His head was placed on a spike on
London Bridge to the sound of trumpets and general rejoicing.
xii   Hugh Despenser the Younger and Edward II

He was an English nobleman in his late 30s, born around the late 1280s,
and his name was Hugh Despenser, lord of Glamorgan; he is usually known
to history as Hugh Despenser the Younger. Hugh was the ‘favourite’ of King
Edward II in the 1320s, perhaps his lover, wielded considerable power over
the English government and foreign policy for years, took whatever lands he
wished with the king’s connivance, and imprisoned, exiled and blackmailed his
enemies. Hugh was once voted the ‘greatest villain of the fourteenth century’ by
BBC History Magazine; the twentieth-century winner (or perhaps we should
say loser) was Oswald Mosley of the British Fascist Party, while Jack the Ripper
took the prize for the nineteenth. [2] From about 1319 until his execution in
November 1326, Hugh Despenser was the most powerful man in England
and Wales. He has been used in literature for centuries as an archetypal royal
favourite. He brought down a king. He was grotesquely executed by a queen.
Yet there has never been a biography of him before, nor even an academic
thesis dedicated to him (though there is one about his family). Contemporary
chroniclers were, without exception, extremely critical and disparaging about
him, not of course without very good reason, and not one had a single good word
to say about Hugh. Neither has he been depicted favourably in more modern
writing. Hugh has appeared in much historical non-fiction and fiction about
Edward II (r. 1307–27) and his queen Isabella of France, though for the most
part appears oddly one-dimensional, even a caricature, a cackling moustache-
twirling villain and psychopath who rapes the queen and murders and tortures
people for fun. There has been little attempt in the last 700 years to depict Hugh
as an individual, and he is sometimes written merely as a placeholder successor
of the much more famous Piers Gaveston (d. 1312), the first great favourite of
Edward II, as though the two men were basically interchangeable. As historian
J. S. Hamilton has pointed out, ‘[i]n popular literature and even some historical
writing there has been a tendency to conflate the two, and to present them
as identical stereotypical caricatures.’ [3] The charges of murder and torture
were made solely by Hugh’s enemies in 1321 and 1326 and have little if any
supporting evidence in their favour, and the charge of raping the queen was
invented in the early twenty-first century. Hugh Despenser the Younger was
emphatically not a nice person, and certainly committed extortion, blackmail,
false imprisonment, piracy and other crimes, but it may be that that the most
serious accusations against him are fabrications, or at least exaggerations.
Did Hugh have any redeeming features? Edward II loved him for many years
and refused to give him up even after an invasion of his kingdom intended to
force him to do so. He was highly intelligent, sharp, witty and articulate. He
read out letters to Edward so was a fluent reader, by no means a given in the
early fourteenth century, and took a keen interest in national affairs and in the
 Introduction  xiii

affairs of his own lordship. He had a sense of humour and was given to dry
sarcasm. He fought at the battle of Bannockburn in June 1314, took part in
jousting tournaments and rescued a woman and her servants when they were
besieged by a large group of armed men, so was certainly not a physical coward.
Although Hugh does not have a reputation as a warrior, perhaps he should:
Edward II made him a knight banneret after Bannockburn (at a time when he
mostly still ignored and apparently disliked Hugh) which can only mean that
Hugh had fought there with notable bravery and honour. He was capable of
self-insight and was honest about his ambitions to be as rich and influential as
possible, and managed to work his way into a position which enabled him to
achieve his aims. If he was arrogant, self-important and grasping, he was not
much different in this respect from most of the medieval English nobility. His
successor as over-mighty royal favourite, his greatest enemy Roger Mortimer,
behaved in much the same way as Hugh had and was executed for usurping
royal power, though in modern times Mortimer tends to be viewed and depicted
as a considerably more attractive and sympathetic figure.
This book is intended more as a personal biography of Hugh Despenser the
Younger using his own letters, Edward II’s accounts and other primary sources,
than as an account of the politics of Edward’s reign which have been extensively
discussed elsewhere. Certain aspects of Hugh’s life, notably the Despenser War,
his possible reforms of the exchequer, the parliament of 1321 which exiled
him, and the parliament of 1322 which restored him, have been narrated in
detail many times before, and there seemed little point in covering very familiar
territory yet again. I have therefore endeavoured to present a fresh and original
take on a notorious figure, using his own words wherever possible.
 Chapter 1

A Plethora of Hugh Despensers

Take good comfort, and be glad, and bold, and work so well now on the king’s
affairs that it will be to the honour of yourself and your blood.

T
he first really important member of the Despenser family was Hugh
the Younger’s grandfather, who was also called Hugh Despenser
and was the son of a man called Hugh Despenser who died in 1238.
(No-one would ever accuse the Despensers of being creative with names for
their sons.) Born in about 1223 or earlier, though no earlier than May 1217
as he was still underage in May 1238, Hugh Despenser the grandfather was
a close ally and associate of Simon Montfort, earl of Leicester (c. 1208–65).
[1] Montfort was the brother-in-law of King Henry III (r. 1216–72), and his
long-term conflict with Henry exploded into open warfare in the Barons’
Wars of the 1260s. In 1260 Despenser was appointed justiciar of England,
and in the late 1250s or 1260 married Aline Basset, daughter and heir of the
royalist baron Philip, Lord Basset, who alternated the office of justiciar with
Despenser.
All the way back in February 1238 Hugh Despenser the grandfather had
been given permission by Henry III that ‘by the counsel of his friends he may
marry where it shall seem best for his promotion,’ and it seems highly likely
that he had been married to another woman before Aline Basset, given that he
was at least 37 and perhaps over 40 at the time of his wedding to her c. 1260.
[2] This would be an unusually advanced age at first marriage for a thirteenth-
century nobleman. If this is the case, though, the identity of his first wife has
not been established. Aline Basset’s date of birth cannot be established more
precisely than sometime in the 1240s, and she was considerably younger than
her husband. The only son of the Despenser-Basset marriage, the man known
to history as Hugh Despenser the Elder and father of Hugh the Younger, was
born on 1 March 1261. [3] Despenser ‘the Elder’ is the only certain child of the
marriage between Hugh Despenser the justiciar and Aline Basset; three other
Despenser siblings, Hugh the Younger’s aunts Anne, Joan and perhaps Eleanor,
are likely to have been the children of Hugh Despenser the justiciar with his
2   Hugh Despenser the Younger and Edward II

unknown first wife. The justiciar fought at the battle of Lewes on 14 May
1264 on the side of Simon Montfort, earl of Leicester, against his own father-
in-law Philip Basset, King Henry III, Henry’s elder son and heir the future
King Edward I (r. 1272–1307), and Henry’s brother Richard of Cornwall, king
of Germany (r. 1257–72). The baronial side won a great victory against the
royalists, and the king, his son and brother, and Philip Basset were committed
to comfortable custody while Montfort ruled the country for more than a year,
with Hugh Despenser as one of his closest allies.
Lord Edward, elder son and heir of the king, escaped from captivity and,
with the aid of the young earl of Gloucester who had switched sides, raised an
army against his uncle Simon Montfort. The young heir to the throne, then
26, turned the tables on Montfort and defeated him at the battle of Evesham in
Worcestershire on 4 August 1265. Evesham was less a battle than a slaughter,
and among the many dead on the field lay Montfort himself, his eldest son,
and his good friend Hugh Despenser the justiciar. Alongside Edward in victory
stood the baron Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, from a great noble family in
Herefordshire and the Welsh March, whose grandson of the same name would,
decades later, prove to be the deadliest enemy and nemesis of Hugh Despenser’s
grandson Hugh the Younger. Roger Mortimer may have killed Despenser
personally at Evesham, and decades later, Hugh the Younger swore to avenge
his grandfather’s death on Mortimer’s son and grandson. [4] Hugh Despenser
the justiciar left his widow Aline née Basset, three or four daughters, and his
four-year-old son and heir Hugh ‘the Elder’. Fortunately for the little boy, and
for the future of his son Hugh the Younger and the Despenser family in general,
his maternal grandfather Philip, Lord Basset held considerable influence with
the royal family. This saved young Hugh’s position and his mother Aline’s. On
4 October 1265 two months after the battle of Evesham, Henry III granted
to Aline for life the three Leicestershire manors (Loughborough, Freeby and
Hugglescote) which had formerly belonged to her husband. [5]
Philip Basset died at his manor of North Weald Bassett in Essex on 29 October
1271, when his daughter and heir Aline Despenser née Basset was said to be
anywhere between 22 and more than 30 years old. [6] It is impossible that she
could have been as young as 22 in October 1271 which would have made her
only 11 or 12 when she gave birth to her son Hugh the Elder. Philip Basset had
married again c. 1255 after the death of his first wife Hawise Lovaine, mother
of Philip’s only (surviving) child Aline. His second wife, the step-grandmother
of Hugh Despenser the Elder, was Ela Longespée, countess of Warwick by
her first marriage and daughter of Henry II’s (r. 1154–89) illegitimate son
William, earl of Salisbury, and she outlived Philip Basset by more than a quarter
of a century. With the three manors she held from her late husband and the 13
 A Plethora of Hugh Despensers    3

she inherited from her father (this figure does not include the third of Basset’s
estate held by his widow Ela in dower which Aline never held as her stepmother
outlived her), Aline became a well-off landowner. [7] In or before 1271 she
married for the second time. Her new husband was Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk
and earl marshal of England, nephew of the childless Roger Bigod (d. 1270), the
previous earl of Norfolk. The younger Roger Bigod was around the same age as
his wife Aline or perhaps a little her junior: he was born c. 1245 and was only
about 16 years older than his stepson Hugh Despenser the Elder. The marriage
produced no children, and Bigod’s second marriage to the sister of the count of
Hainault also remained childless.
Aline continued to use her first husband’s name throughout her marriage to
the earl of Norfolk, and Bigod himself referred to her as Aline la Despensere. [8]
Medieval noblewomen who were married to more than one man tended to use
the name of the highest ranking of their husbands, and, as an earl, Roger Bigod
was of higher rank than Hugh Despenser the justiciar had been. Aline’s choice
to retain Despenser’s name throughout her second marriage and until her death
may therefore be revealing, and indicate that she had found her first marriage
a happy one. Aline Despenser née Basset, countess of Norfolk, died shortly
before 11 April 1281. She left a will, though it does not survive, and her son
and heir Hugh the Elder was one of her executors. [9] On 28 May and again on
2 June 1281, Edward I’s steward was ordered to deliver Aline’s lands to Hugh,
even though he was still not quite of age; he would turn 21 on 1 March 1282.
[10] Also on 28 May 1281, William Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, was granted
the rights to Despenser’s marriage, a common situation among tenants-in-chief
(the important men and women of the realm who held land directly from the
king) which generally meant that the earl would expect to arrange Despenser’s
marriage to a member of his own family, usually a daughter or niece. [11]
From his mother and Basset grandfather, Hugh Despenser the Elder inherited
the manors of North Weald Bassett, Wix, Tolleshunt Gaines, Tolleshunt Knights,
Layer de la Haye and Lamarsh in Essex; Barnwell in Northamptonshire; High
Wycombe, Buckinghamshire; Soham, Cambridgeshire; Vastern, Broadtown,
Upavon, Marden, Berwick Bassett, Compton Bassett, Wootton Bassett and
Winterbourne Bassett, Wiltshire; Woking and Sutton Green, Surrey; Speen,
Berkshire; Loughborough, Freeby and Hugglescote, Leicestershire (originally
held by his father Hugh the justiciar); Kirtlington, Elsfield and Cassington,
Oxfordshire; Oxcroft, Cambridgeshire; Euston and Kersey, Suffolk; and
Mapledurwell, Hampshire. [12] At some point he also acquired Otmoor in
Oxfordshire which is now a nature reserve owned by the Royal Society for the
Protection of Birds, and in August 1302 complained that five men had ‘carried
away his swans’ from there. [13] Throughout his lifetime Hugh the Elder added
4   Hugh Despenser the Younger and Edward II

considerably to his inheritance, and by 1321 he had 66 manors in 18 counties,

though held some of these as wardships. [14] Even without his many later
additions, his inheritance from his mother Aline was sizeable enough that her
widower Roger Bigod tried to gain control of it after her death. A medieval
custom called ‘the courtesy of England’ allowed a man to keep hold of all his
late wife’s inheritance until his own death, provided that they had had at least
one child together. Bigod claimed in 1281 that Aline had borne him a child at
her manor of Woking and that it had lived long enough to take a breath before
dying. Despenser vigorously challenged his stepfather, and Bigod was forced to
give up his claim; Aline’s inheritance passed intact to her son. [15] Sometime
before 12 June 1290, the earl of Norfolk married his second wife Alicia, daughter
and sister of counts of Hainault, and on that date Hugh the Elder was one of the
witnesses to Norfolk’s assignment of dower to his new countess. [16]
On 2 March 1282, the day after his twenty-first birthday, Hugh Despenser
the Elder acknowledged a debt of 1,600 marks to William Beauchamp, earl
of Warwick, to buy the rights to his own marriage from the earl. [17] This
association with Warwick would ultimately result some years later in Despenser’s
marriage to the earl’s daughter Isabella Beauchamp, Hugh Despenser the
Younger’s mother, though in 1282 she was still married to her first husband
Patrick Chaworth and bore him a child on 2 February that year. Despenser was
allowed on 3 March 1282 to take possession of the Worcestershire manor of
Martley which had formerly belonged to his father’s cousin John Despenser,
whose heir he was, on the grounds that ‘it is evident to the king’s court that
Hugh is of full age.’ [18] He later gave Martley to his eldest child Alina, and
inherited two more manors in Leicestershire from John. [19]
William Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, Hugh Despenser the Younger’s
maternal grandfather, was born in the late 1230s or beginning of the 1240s
and so was very close to the same age as Henry III’s son King Edward I, who
was born on 17 June 1239. [20] He was the eldest son of William Beauchamp
the Elder, lord of Elmley in Worcestershire, and Isabella Mauduit, whose
mother Alice was the daughter of Waleran Beaumont, earl of Warwick. William
Beauchamp married Maud FitzJohn, eldest of the four daughters of Isabel
Bigod, daughter of the earl of Norfolk and granddaughter of William Marshal,
earl of Pembroke. As both their brothers died childless, Maud and her three
younger sisters, and their children and grandchildren, were the FitzJohn heirs.
Maud had previously been married to Gerard, Lord Furnival, who died before
18 October 1261; they had no children. [21]
William Beauchamp and Maud FitzJohn had one surviving son, Guy
Beauchamp, who was born between 1271 and 1275 and succeeded William as
earl in June 1298. [22] William and Maud named their son in honour of the
 A Plethora of Hugh Despensers    5

literary hero Guy of Warwick. Their daughter Isabella, Hugh Despenser the
Younger’s mother, was a few years older than her brother; she was born around
1263 to 1266 and may have been the eldest Beauchamp child. As Maud’s first
husband Gerald Furnival was alive until October 1261, Maud and William
cannot have married before 1262, so Isabella cannot have been born before
c. late 1262 or 1263. She bore her first child in early 1282 so is unlikely to
have been born after 1266. Isabella and Guy Beauchamp had several other
sisters, Hugh Despenser the Younger’s aunts: two who both became nuns at
Shouldham Priory in Norfolk, and an uncertain number of others. [23] William
Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, was a friend of Edward I, was made High Sheriff
of Worcestershire for life in 1268, and played a large part in the king’s military
campaigns in Wales in the 1270s and early 1280s. [24] He wrote his will on
14 September 1296 21 months before he died, and asked to be buried at the
Greyfriars’ or Franciscans’ church in Worcester. Earl William did not mention
his daughter Isabella or any of his grandchildren in the will, though left his son
and heir Guy a gold ring with a ruby and the sum of 50 marks to two of his other
daughters, the nuns of Shouldham. To his wife Countess Maud, William left
several items including ‘the cross wherein is contained part of the wood of the
very Cross whereon our Saviour died.’ [25]
Isabella Beauchamp’s first husband Patrick Chaworth died shortly before
7 July 1283 when the writ to take his lands into the king’s hands was issued.
Patrick’s heir was his and Isabella’s only child Maud, named after Isabella’s
mother the countess of Warwick, who was ‘age one on the Feast of the Purification
last’ in July 1283, i.e. she was born on or around 2 February 1282. [26] Maud
Chaworth, Hugh the Younger’s half-sister, inherited the lordships of Kidwelly
and Carmarthen in South Wales, and 16 manors in five English counties, from
her father, and was also the heir of her uncle Payn Chaworth. [27] Isabella
Chaworth née Beauchamp was granted her dower, the customary one-third of
her late husband’s estate, on 3 September and 4 October 1283. [28] Only in
her teens or at most 20 years old at the time of her husband’s death in the
summer of 1283, she remained a widow for some years until she married Hugh
Despenser the Elder, formerly, albeit briefly, her father’s ward.
As the earl of Norfolk’s stepson and in possession of a reasonably large
inheritance across numerous counties in the Midlands and south of England,
Hugh the Elder made a good prospect as a husband for the earl of Warwick’s
daughter, and probably sometime in 1286, the two married. The date of Hugh
and Isabella’s wedding cannot be precisely determined, except that it is likely
to have taken place after 10 September 1285 when Isabella was still called
Chaworth, and definitely before 27 January 1287 when Despenser acknowledged
liability for a fine for marrying Isabella without royal permission. [29] Although
Visit https://textbookfull.com
now to explore a rich
collection of eBooks, textbook
and enjoy exciting offers!
6   Hugh Despenser the Younger and Edward II

they wed without a licence from Edward I and were fined, this was a common
occurrence. Tenants-in-chief were obliged to obtain the king’s permission to
marry, but often failed to do so, and a large fine and temporary seizure of lands
and goods was the usual punishment. On 8 November 1287, Hugh Despenser
the Elder was acquitted of a fine of 2,000 marks or £1,333 ‘for his trespass in
marrying Isabella…without the king’s licence.’ [30] Their marriage without a
royal licence might indicate that it was a love-match, and almost certainly they
both freely chose to wed. Isabella as a widow had more freedom than she had
before she married Patrick Chaworth; it was the norm for noble families to
arrange their children’s marriages, but in widowhood women usually (though
not always) had more freedom to marry again or not as they pleased, and to
choose their own second husbands. Hugh the Elder’s brief period as the ward of
Isabella’s father Earl William presumably gave the two an opportunity to meet.
Despenser, despite or perhaps because of his father’s rebellion against King
Henry III in the 1260s, was himself a loyal royal servant all his life, faithfully
serving Henry’s son Edward I and grandson Edward II. He was ‘going beyond
seas’ on Edward I’s service on 27 May 1286 and again on 10 April 1287; perhaps
he married Isabella before the May 1286 visit, or when he returned from it. [31]
The marriage of Hugh Despenser the Elder and Isabella Beauchamp
produced six children, two boys and four girls. The eldest Despenser child
was Alina, named conventionally after her paternal grandmother the countess
of Norfolk. Alina was probably born in 1287 or thereabouts, the year after the
likely date of her parents’ wedding, and did not die until May 1363 when she
must have been in her mid-70s. [32] Sometime after 3 May 1302 at the age of
about 14 or 15, Alina Despenser married Edward Burnell, who himself was
born on or around 22 July 1287. Hugh the Younger was the elder of the two
Despenser sons and the second child. It is likely that Alina Despenser was a
year or two Hugh’s senior, as she married in 1302 and he in 1306; although it
was common for noble girls of the era to marry at a rather younger age than
their brothers, the four-year gap between Alina’s wedding and Hugh’s indicates
that she was older than he. Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing exactly
when Hugh was born, even to the nearest year, but it was probably about 1288
or 1289. Hugh the Younger married 13-year-old Eleanor Clare on 26 May 1306
a few days after he was knighted, when he was about 17 or 18.
Isabella was the third Despenser child and born perhaps in 1290/92, and
named after their mother. She married her first husband Gilbert Clare (b. 1281),
lord of Thomond in Ireland, probably in 1306 or soon afterwards. The date is
not recorded, but as Gilbert’s first cousin was Eleanor Clare who married Hugh
the Younger in May 1306, it may be that a double marriage alliance between
the Despenser siblings and the Clare cousins was arranged in this year. Gilbert
 A Plethora of Hugh Despensers    7

Clare of Thomond died in November 1307, and in 1308 or 1309 Isabella married
her second husband John, Lord Hastings, who, born in 1262, was just a year
younger than her father. Next in the list of Despenser children came Philip, the
fourth child and second son, named after his great-grandfather Philip Basset.
Philip Despenser was born sometime before 24 June 1294, and married the
Lincolnshire heiress Margaret Goushill, who was born in 1294, before 29 June
1308. [33] The fifth Despenser child was Margaret, who married John St Amand
after 4 December 1313 and was born around the mid to late 1290s and the sixth
and youngest was Elizabeth, probably born in the late 1290s or early 1300s. She
married the widower Ralph, Lord Camoys, who was born in the 1270s, in or
before 1316. All the Despenser siblings except Alina had children of their own;
Hugh the Elder and Isabella had at least 20 grandchildren, Hugh the Younger
contributing half that total. Isabella Despenser née Beauchamp died in May
1306 when she was in her early or mid-40s and her husband 45. Although Hugh
the Elder lived for another two decades, he never married again.
Hugh Despenser the Younger was of almost entirely English origin several
generations back on both sides of his family. Going farther back in time, to the
mid-twelfth century, one of his five greats-grandmothers on his father’s side
was German: she was Luitgarde of Sulzbach in north-east Bavaria, duchess
of Lower Lorraine, landgravine of Brabant and margravine of Antwerp, and
countess of Metz and Dagsburg by her second marriage. Luitgarde’s sister
Bertha of Sulzbach, renamed Eirene after her wedding, married the Byzantine
emperor Manuel I Komnenos (r. 1143–80) in 1146, and another sister, Gertrud,
married Konrad von Hohenstaufen, king of Germany and Italy (r. 1138–52).
Luitgarde’s daughter-in-law, the woman who married her son Duke Godfried
III of Lower Lorraine and who was Hugh Despenser’s great-great-great-
great-grandmother, bore the excellent name Imagina de Looz. Imagina was the
daughter of Louis, count of Looz in what is now Belgium and of Rieneck in
Bavaria, and also burgrave of Mainz in western Germany. Imagina’s younger
son Godfrey of Lovaine moved to England in the 1190s and would become the
ancestor of the Despensers: his granddaughter Hawise Lovaine married Philip,
Lord Basset and was the grandmother of Hugh Despenser the Elder.
Although Hugh never set foot in Ireland, he had connections there: he was the
five greats-grandson of Diarmait Mac Murchada or Dermot MacMurrough,
king of Leinster (d. 1171), and his great-grandfather John FitzGeoffrey of
Shere (d. 1258) was justiciar of Ireland. His grandmother Maud FitzJohn’s
sister Aveline married Walter Burgh, lord of Connaught, and was the mother
of Richard Burgh, earl of Ulster (1259–1326), a first cousin of Isabella
Beauchamp. Another of Maud’s three younger sisters, Joan, was the mother
of the earl of Carrick and grandmother of earls of Kildare and Ormond. Hugh
8   Hugh Despenser the Younger and Edward II

would have been raised to be very aware of his high rank and his noble relatives
and ancestors, and to know that one day he would make an arranged marriage
to a noblewoman whom his father would choose for him. He was an eligible
bachelor, and Edward I himself paid a great deal of money to Hugh the Elder
for the privilege of marrying Hugh to his eldest granddaughter.
 Chapter 2

Early Life

Work gladly and assiduously on the king’s business, and protect his
honour and his country, because in doing so he will have such regard for
you that you will be rich and will remain always honoured.

H
ugh the Younger was of noble origin going back generations and was
most probably born in the late 1280s, about halfway through the
reign of the man who would become his grandfather-in-law: Edward
I, who succeeded his father Henry III as king of England in November 1272.
We know nothing about Hugh’s childhood or where he grew up; perhaps
on one or several of his father’s chief manors such as High Wycombe in
Buckinghamshire or Soham in Cambridgeshire. Noble boys of the Middle
Ages were often sent to the household of a nobleman or noblewoman to serve
as a page from the age of about seven, and this is likely to have been the
case with Hugh as well. It is possible that he spent time in the households
of his maternal grandfather and uncle William and Guy Beauchamp, earls
of Warwick, though this is only speculation. Hugh’s great-uncle Sir Walter
Beauchamp, one of Earl William’s many siblings, became steward of Edward
I’s household in 1289, around the time that Hugh was born, and held the
position until his death in 1303. [1] The prominence of his grandfather and
great-uncle at court means that Hugh surely spent time there as well as he was
growing up. Hugh would have been taught to ride and to wield a sword from a
very young age. In England knighthood was not hereditary as such, but a young
man of Hugh’s high birth could always expect to be knighted and so he would
have been trained for this. One day he would come into a large inheritance
and would have to learn how to manage it, and would have learnt the courtesy,
etiquette and so on which he would need to operate successfully in his society.
Hugh’s father was often sent by Edward I on important diplomatic missions
to the pope and to leaders of other European nations which indicates that he
was extremely presentable, well-dressed and well-spoken and must have had
excellent courtly manners.
Hugh the Younger’s upbringing was as comfortable as anyone’s possibly
could be at the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth centuries:
10   Hugh Despenser the Younger and Edward II

his father was very well-off, and in 1291 was able to make a loan of £500 to the
earl of Arundel, Richard Fitzalan. [2] By 1308 Hugh the Elder owned houses
in Paris and elsewhere in France, and at the same time was owed more than
£2,500 by Edward II. By March 1318, the king owed Despenser a remarkable
£6,770. [3] On top of his sizeable inheritance from his parents, grandfather
and father’s cousin, Hugh the Elder acquired many other estates in England
from the 1290s onwards, sometimes by rather dubious means; he was not
overburdened with scruples, and his son was to prove even less so. In 1298
when Hugh the Younger was about nine or 10, one Saer le Barber of London
declared that his father was ‘unworthy of praise’ and claimed that he ‘kept
more robbers with him than any man in England.’ Despenser complained
to the mayor of London, and Barber was sent to Newgate prison. [4] Hugh
the Elder was accused of brutality and corruption by his contemporaries,
especially in his capacity as justice of the forest, and c. 1313 a chronicler wrote
‘the whole land has turned to hatred of him. Few would mourn his downfall.
As an unjust official he did harm to many.’ On the other hand, he and his father
Hugh the justiciar were talented administrators and estate managers, not to
mention diplomats. [5] The three Hugh Despensers of the thirteenth and early
fourteenth centuries were acquisitive and often cruel and malicious; they were
also intelligent and capable men.
Evidence from the 1320s shows that Hugh the Younger was a fluent reader
and was probably able to write. As was the case with all the English nobility
of this era, Hugh was French-speaking, and all his surviving correspondence
is in that language. Many of his extant letters survive as drafts, kept by Hugh
himself, and are fascinating for revealing his thought processes as he ordered
his clerks to add or to strike out various phrases as he changed his mind on
certain points. The letters also show Hugh’s ability to dictate articulate and
detailed text, his deep interest in his lordship of Glamorgan in South Wales,
and his control over the English government and foreign policy in the 1320s.
Whether or to what extent he and his noble peers could speak English can only
be guessed at as we have little direct evidence, though presumably as he and
the rest of the elite lived in a country where the vast majority of the population
spoke only English, he could speak it, and he probably learnt Latin as well.
Hugh would also have received a considerable amount of religious teaching.
In 1290 when he was still only a baby or a toddler, Edward I expelled the entire
Jewish population from England, with the result that for the whole of Hugh’s
lifetime everyone who lived in his country was Catholic. Little of his behaviour
indicates that he was particularly pious, though he expressed dutiful wishes in
many of his letters that God would help him achieve his aims and ended them
with conventional salutations such as ‘May God keep you’ or ‘May the Holy
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
Rūzbih and the King in this situation. They immediately seized
Rūzbih; and when the King awoke, they told him that, by their
coming, they had saved his Majesty from assassination, which the
jeweller, with a drawn sword, had been ready to perpetrate. The
King, at first, ordered his immediate execution; and as day was
beginning to dawn, and the approach of the enemy required his
presence at the head of his troops, he sent for the executioner, who,
having bound the eyes of Rūzbih and drawn his sword, exclaimed:
“Say, King of the world, shall I strike or not?”
The King, considering that it would be better to inquire more
particularly into the affair, and, knowing that, although it is easy to
kill, it is impossible to restore a man to life, resolved to defer the
punishment until his return, and sent Rūzbih to prison.
After this he proceeded to join the army, and having subdued his
enemies, returned to the capital; but, during the space of two years,
forgot the unfortunate Rūzbih, who lingered away his life in
confinement. In the meantime his father and mother, grieving on
account of his absence, and, ignorant of what had befallen him, sent
a letter of inquiry by a confidential messenger to the money-changers
(or bankers) of that city. Having read this, they wrote back, in
answer, that Rūzbih had been in prison for two years.
On receiving this information, the jewel-merchant and his wife
resolved to set out and throw themselves at the feet of this King, and
endeavour to obtain from him the pardon and liberty of their son.
With heavy hearts they accordingly proceeded on their journey, and
having arrived at the capital, presented themselves before the King,
and said: “Be it known unto your exalted Majesty, that we are two
wretched strangers, oppressed by the infirmities of age, and
overwhelmed by misfortune. We were blessed with two sons, one
named Bihrūz, the other Rūzbih; but it was the will of Heaven that
they should fall into the sea, where one of them perished, but the
other was restored to us. The fame of your Majesty’s generosity and
greatness induced our son to visit this imperial court; and we are
informed that, by your orders, he is now in prison. The object of our
petition is, that your Majesty might take compassion on our helpless
situation, and restore to us our long-lost son.”
The King on hearing this was astonished, and for a while imagined
that it was all a dream. At length, when convinced that the old man
and woman were his own parents, and that Rūzbih was his own
brother, he sent for him to the prison, embraced them and wept, and
placed them beside him on the throne; and for the sake of Rūzbih,
set at liberty all those who had been confined with him. After this he
divided the empire with his brother, and their time passed away in
pleasure and tranquillity.

This story being concluded, Bakhtyār observed, that the jewel-

merchant, by his precipitancy, had nearly occasioned the death of his
two sons; and that Bihrūz, by deferring the execution of his brother,
had prevented an infinity of distress to himself and his parents. This
observation induced the King to grant Bakhtyār another day’s
reprieve, and he was taken back to prison.
 CHAPTER IX.

hen the next morning came, the Ninth Vizier appeared

before the King and said, that his extraordinary
forbearance and lenity in respect to Bakhtyār had given
occasion to much scandal; as every criminal, however
heinous his offence, began to think that he might escape
punishment by amusing the King with idle stories.
The King, on hearing this, sent to the prison for
Bakhtyār, and desired the executioner to attend. When
the unfortunate young man came before the King, he requested a
respite only of two days, in the course of which he hoped his
innocence might be proved; “although,” said he, “I know that the
malice of one’s enemies is a flame from which it is almost impossible
to escape: as appears from the story of Abū Temām, who, on the
strength of a false accusation, was put to death by the King, and his
innocence acknowledged when too late.”
“Who was that Abū Temām?” demanded the King, “and what were
those malicious accusations which prevailed against him?”

STORY OF ABŪ TEMĀM.

Abū Temām (said Bakhtyār) was a very wealthy man, who resided
in a city, the King of which was so tyrannical and unjust, that
whatever money any one possessed above five direms he seized on
for his own use. Abū Temām was so disgusted and terrified by the
oppressions and cruelties of this King, that he never enjoyed one
meal in peace or comfort, until he had collected all his property
together and contrived to escape from that place. After some time he
settled in the capital of another King, a city adorned with gardens,
and well supplied with running streams. This King was a man of
upright and virtuous principles, renowned for hospitality and
kindness to strangers. In this capital Abū Temām purchased a
magnificent mansion, in which he sumptuously entertained the
people of the city, presenting each of them, at his departure, with a
handsome dress suited to his rank. The inhabitants were delighted
with his generosity, and his hospitality was daily celebrated by the
strangers who resorted to his house. He also expended considerable
sums in the erection of bridges, caravanseries, and mosques. At last
the fame of his liberality and munificence reached the King, who sent
to him two servants with a very flattering message and an invitation
to court. This Abū Temām thankfully accepted; and having prepared
the necessary presents for the King, he hastened to the palace, where
he kissed the ground of obedience and was graciously received.
In a short time he became so great a favourite that the King would
not permit him to be one day absent, and heaped on him so many
favours that he was next in power to his royal master; and his advice
was followed in all matters of importance.
But this King had ten viziers, who conceived a mortal hatred
against Abū Temām, and said, one to another: “He has robbed us of
all dignity and power, and we must devise some means whereby we
may banish him from this country.” The chief vizier proposed that, as
the King was a very passionate admirer of beauty, and the Princess of
Turkestān one of the loveliest creatures of the age, they should so
praise her charms before him as to induce him to send Abū Temām
to ask her in marriage; and as it was the custom of the King of
Turkestān to send all ambassadors who came on that errand to his
daughter, who always caused their heads to be cut off, so the
destruction of Abū Temām would be certain.
This advice all the other viziers approved of; and, having
proceeded to the palace, they took an opportunity of talking on
various subjects, until the King of Turkestān was mentioned, when
the chief vizier began to celebrate the charms of the lovely Princess.
When the King heard the extravagant praises of her beauty, he
became enamoured, and declared his intention of despatching an
ambassador to the court of Turkestān, and demanding the Princess
in marriage. The viziers immediately said, that no person was so
properly qualified for such an embassy as Abū Temām. The King
accordingly sent for him, and, addressing him as his father and
friend, informed him that he had now occasion for his assistance in
the accomplishment of a matter on which his heart was bent. Abū
Temām desired to know what his Majesty’s commands might be, and
declared himself ready to obey them. The King having communicated
his design, all the necessary preparations were made, and Abū
Temām set out on his journey to the court of Turkestān. In the
meantime the viziers congratulated one another on the success of
their stratagem.
When the King of Turkestān heard of Abū Temām’s arrival, he sent
proper officers to receive and compliment him, and on the following
day gave him a public audience; and when the palace was cleared of
the crowd, and Abū Temām had an opportunity of speaking with the
King in private, he disclosed the object of his mission, and demanded
the Princess for his master. The King acknowledged himself highly
honoured by the proposal of such an alliance, and said: “I fear that
my daughter is not qualified for so exalted a station as you offer; but
if you will visit her in the harem, and converse with her, you may
form an opinion of her beauty and accomplishments; and if you
approve of her, preparations for the marriage shall be made without
delay.”
Abū Temām thanked his Majesty for this readiness in complying
with his demands; but said that he could not think of profaning the
beauty of her who was destined for his sovereign by gazing on her, or
of allowing his ears to hear the forbidden sounds of her voice;—
besides, his King never entertained a doubt on the subject of her
charms and qualifications: the daughter of such a monarch must be
worthy of any King, but he was not sent to make any inquiry as to her
merits, but to demand her in marriage.
The King of Turkestān, on hearing this reply, embraced Abū
Temām, and said: “Within this hour I meditated thy destruction; for
of all the ambassadors who have hitherto come to solicit my
daughter, I have tried the wisdom and talents, and have judged by
them of the Kings who employed them, and finding them deficient, I
have caused their heads to be cut off.” On saying this, he took from
under his robe a key, with which he opened a lock, and going into
another part of the palace, he exhibited to Abū Temām the heads of
four hundred ambassadors.
 After this the King directed the necessary preparations for the
departure of his daughter, and invested Abū Temām with a splendid
robe of honour, who, when ten days had elapsed, embarked in a ship
with the Princess, her damsels, and other attendants. The news of his
arrival with the fair Princess of Turkestān being announced, the
King, his master, was delighted, and the viziers, his mortal enemies,
were confounded at the failure of their stratagems. The King,
accompanied by all the people, great and small, went two stages to
meet Abū Temām and the Princess, and, having led her into the city,
after three days celebrated their marriage by the most sumptuous
feasts and rejoicings, and bestowed a thousand thanks on Abū
Temām, who every day became a greater favourite.
The ten viziers, finding, in consequence of this, their own
importance and dignity gradually reduced, consulted one with
another, saying: “All that we have hitherto done only tends to the
exaltation of Abū Temām; we must devise some other means of
disgracing him in the King’s esteem, and procuring his banishment
from this country.”
After this they concerted together, and at length resolved to bribe
two boys, whose office was to rub the King’s feet every night after he
lay down on his bed; and they accordingly instructed these boys to
take an opportunity, when the King should close his eyes, of saying
that Abū Temām had been ungrateful for the favours bestowed on
him; that he had violated the harem, and aspired to the Queen’s
affections, and had boasted that she would not have come from
Turkestān had she not been enamoured of himself. This lesson the
viziers taught the boys, giving them a thousand dīnars, and
promising five hundred more.
When it was night the boys were employed as usual in their office
of rubbing the King’s feet; and when they perceived his eyes to be
closed, they began to repeat all that the viziers had taught them to
say concerning Abū Temām.
The King, hearing this, started up, and dismissing the boys, sent
immediately for Abū Temām, and said to him: “A certain matter has
occurred, on the subject of which I must consult you; and I expect
that you will relieve my mind by answering the question that I shall
ask.”—Abū Temām declared himself ready to obey.—“What, then,”
demanded the King, “does that servant merit, who, in return for
various favours, ungratefully attempts to violate the harem of his
sovereign?”—“Such a servant,” answered Abū Temām, “should be
punished with death: his blood should expiate his offence.” When
Abū Temām had said this, the King drew his scimitar, and cut off his
head, and ordered his body to be cast into a pit.
For some days he gave not audience to any person, and the viziers
began to exult in the success of their stratagem; but the King was
melancholy, and loved to sit alone, and was constantly thinking of
the unfortunate Abū Temām.
It happened, however, that one day the two boys who had been
bribed by the viziers were engaged in a dispute one with the other on
the division of the money, each claiming for himself the larger share.
In the course of their dispute they mentioned the innocence of Abū
Temām, and the bribe which they had received for defaming him in
the King’s hearing.
All this conversation the King overheard; and trembling with
vexation, rage, and sorrow, he compelled the boys to relate all the
circumstances of the affair; in consequence of which the ten viziers
were immediately seized and put to death, and their houses levelled
with the ground; after which the King passed his time in fruitless
lamentation for the loss of Abū Temām.

“Thus,” said Bakhtyār, “does unrelenting malice persecute unto

destruction; but if the King had not been so hasty in killing Abū
Temām, he would have spared himself all his subsequent sorrow.”
The King, affected by this observation, resolved to indulge
Bakhtyār with another day, and accordingly sent him back to prison.
 CHAPTER X.

arly on the next morning the Tenth Vizier sent a woman

to the Queen with a message, urging her to exert her
influence over the King, and induce him to give orders
for the execution of Bakhtyār. The Queen, in
consequence of this, addressed the King on the subject
before he left the palace, and he replied, that Bakhtyār’s
fate was now decided, and that his execution should not
be any longer deferred. The King then went forth, and
the Viziers attended in their proper places. The Tenth
Vizier was rising to speak, when the King informed him
of his resolution to terminate the affair of Bakhtyār by putting him to
death on that day.
He was brought accordingly from the prison; and the King on
seeing him said: “You have spoken a great deal of your innocence, yet
have not been able to make it appear; therefore no longer entertain
any hopes of mercy, for I have given orders for your execution.”—On
hearing this, Bakhtyār began to weep, and said: “I have hitherto
endeavoured to gain time, conscious of my innocence, and hoping
that it might be proved, and a guiltless person saved from an
ignominious death; but I now find it vain to struggle against the
decrees of Heaven. Thus the King of Persia foolishly attempted to
counteract his destiny, and triumph over the will of Providence, but
in vain.”
The King expressed a desire of hearing the story to which Bakhtyār
alluded, and the young man began to relate it as follows:

STORY OF THE KING OF PERSIA.

 There was a certain King of Persia, a very powerful and wealthy
monarch, who, not having any child, employed all the influence of
prayers and of alms to procure the blessing of a son from Heaven. At
length one of his handmaids became pregnant, and the King was
transported with joy; but one night, in a dream, he was addressed by
an old man, who said: “The Lord has complied with your request,
and to-morrow you shall have a son; but in his seventh year a lion
shall seize and carry off this son to the top of a mountain, from which
he shall fall, rolling in blood and clay.” When the King awoke, he
assembled the viziers, and related to them the horrors of his dream.
They replied: “Long be the King’s life! If Heaven has decreed such a
calamity who can oppose or control it?”—The King presumptuously
declared that he would struggle against and counteract it; but one of
his viziers, eminently skilled in astrology, discovered one day, by the
power of his science, that the King would, after twenty years, perish
by the hand of his own son. In consequence of this, he immediately
waited on the King, and informed him that he had to communicate a
certain matter, for the truth and certainty of which he would answer
with his life. The King desired him to reveal it; and he, falling on the
knees of obedience, related all that he had discovered in the stars. “If
it happens not according to what you predict,” said the King, “I shall
certainly put you to death.”
In the meantime, however, he caused a subterraneous dwelling to
be constructed, to which he sent the boy, with a nurse. There they
remained during the space of seven years, when, in compliance with
the heavenly decree, a lion suddenly rushed into the cave, and
devoured the nurse, and having wounded the child, carried him up to
the summit of a neighbouring mountain, from which he let him fall
to the bottom, covered with blood and earth. It happened that one of
the King’s secretaries came by, in pursuit of game, and perceived the
boy in this situation, and the lion standing on the summit of the
mountain. He immediately resolved to save the child; and having
taken him to his own house, he healed his wounds, and instructed
him in various accomplishments.
On the day after the nurse had been devoured and the child carried
away by the lion, the King resolved to visit the cave, and finding it
deserted, he concluded that the nurse had escaped to some other
place. He instantly despatched messengers to seek her in every
quarter, but in vain.
In process of time the boy grew up, and acted as keeper [of pen
and ink] to the secretary. In this situation, having been employed at
the palace, it happened that the King saw and was much pleased with
him, and felt within his bosom the force of paternal affection. In
consequence of this he demanded him of the secretary, and clothed
him in splendid garments; and after some time, when an enemy
invaded the country, and required the King’s presence with his army,
he appointed the young man to be his armour-bearer; and,
accompanied by him, proceeded to battle.
After a bloody conflict, the troops of the enemy were victorious,
and those of the King began to fly; but he, in the impulse of rage and
fury, threw himself into the midst of his adversaries, fighting with
the most desperate valour. In this state of confusion it was
impossible to know one person from another; the young armour-
bearer, who fought also with the utmost bravery, no longer
distinguishing the King, rushed into a crowd of combatants, and
striking furiously on all sides, cut off the hand of one man whom he
supposed to be of the enemy’s side; but this person was the King,
who, on recognising the armour-bearer, upbraided him with this
attempt upon his life, and being unable to remain any longer in the
field, he retired, with his troops, to the capital, and the next day
concluded a peace with the enemy, on condition of paying a
considerable sum of money. He then gave orders that the armour-
bearer should be arrested, and although he persevered in
declarations of innocence, they availed him not; he was thrown into
prison, and loaded with chains.
In the meantime the King was reposing on the pillow of death; and
when he found that all hopes of recovery were vain, he resolved to
punish the vizier who had told him that his son should be torn by a
lion, and that he should fall by the hand of that son. “Now,” said the
King, “my son has been carried away to some other country by his
nurse, and I have been wounded by the hand of a different person.”
Having said this, he sent for the vizier, and desired him to prepare
for death. “This armour-bearer,” added he, “and not my own son, has
wounded me, contrary to your prediction; and, as you consented to
be punished in case your prediction should not be accomplished, I
have resolved to put you to death.”—“Be it so,” replied the vizier; “but
let us first inquire into the birth of this young armour-bearer.”
The King immediately sent for the young man, and asked him
concerning his parents and his country. He answered that of the
country which gave him birth he was ignorant; but that he had been
with his mother in a subterraneous place, and that she had informed
him of his father’s being a king, but he had never seen his father; that
one day a lion carried him away to the summit of a mountain, from
which he fell, and was taken up by the secretary, by whom he was
instructed in various accomplishments, and from whose service he
passed into that of the King.
When the King heard this, he was amazed, and his hair stood on
end; and he sent for the viziers and secretary, who confirmed what
the young man had said.
Having thus ascertained that the armour-bearer was his own son,
he resigned to him the crown and throne; and having invested the
vizier with the robe of prime-minister, he expired in the course of
three days.

Here Bakhtyār concluded his narrative, and observed, that he had

struggled against his evil destiny, like that king, but in vain. Having
said this, the King wished to send him back to prison; but the Ten
Viziers unanimously declared that they would leave the country if
Bakhtyār’s punishment was any longer deferred.
The King then acknowledged that he could not bear to behold the
execution of the young man; in consequence of which the Viziers led
him away, and assembled all the people by proclamation, that they
might see him put to death.
 CONCLUSION.

t happened at this time that Farrukhsuwār, who had

found Bakhtyār at the side of the well, came, with some
of his companions, to the city, and was wrapped in that
embroidered cloak which the King and Queen had left
with the infant. In passing by the place of execution he
beheld the guards leading out Bakhtyār to punishment,
on which he rushed amongst them with his companions,
and rescued the young man from their hands, and then
solicited an audience of the King.
On coming into the royal presence Farrukhsuwār
exclaimed: “This young man is my son; I cannot bear to
see him executed: if he must perish, let me also be put to
death.”—“Your wish in this respect,” said the King, “may
be easily gratified.”—“Alas!” cried Farrukhsuwār, “if the
father of this youth, who was a king, or his mother, who
was a queen, were informed of his situation, they would save him
from this ignominious death!” The King laughed at the seeming
inconsistency of Farrukhsuwār, and said: “You told me at one time
that Bakhtyār was your son, yet now you describe him as the child of
royal parents.”
Farrukhsuwār, in reply, told all the circumstances of his finding
Bakhtyār near the well, and showed the cloak in which he had been
wrapped. The King immediately knew it to be the same which he had
left with the infant, and asked whether Farrukhsuwār had found
anything besides. He produced the bracelet of pearls, and the King,
now convinced that Bakhtyār was not the son of Farrukhsuwār, but
his own, took the cloak and the bracelets to the Queen, and asked her
if she had ever before seen them. She instantly exclaimed: “They
were my child’s!—what tidings do you bring of him?”—“I shall bring
himself,” replied the King; and he immediately sent an order to the
Viziers that they should conduct Bakhtyār to the palace.
When he arrived, the King, with his own hands, took off his chains,
placed a royal turban on his head, and covered him with the
embroidered cloak, and then led him to the Queen, saying: “This is
our son, whom we left on the brink of the well.” When the Queen
heard this, and beheld Bakhtyār, the tears gushed forth from her
eyes, and she embraced him with the greatest emotion. Bakhtyār
then asked the Queen why she had endeavoured to destroy him by a
false accusation, and she confessed that the Viziers had induced her;
on which the King ordered their immediate execution, and then
resigned the throne to Bakhtyār, who was acknowledged sovereign
by all the people. Farrukhsuwār was invested with the dignity of chief
Vizier, and his companions rewarded with honourable
appointments; and Bakhtyār continued for many years to govern
with justice, wisdom, and generosity.
 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

⁂ In the Preface to his translation and text of the Bakhtyār

Nāma, Sir William Ouseley states, that “as this work is chiefly
designed for the use of those who begin to study the Persian
language,” he selected for translation, from among three manuscripts
in his own possession and five or six others in the collections of
several friends, “that which seemed written in the most pure and
simple style; for several copies, in passing through the hands of
ignorant or conceited transcribers, have suffered a considerable
depravation of the original text, and one, in particular, is so disguised
by the alterations and augmented by the additions of some Indian
Munshī, that it appears almost a different work. These additions,
however, are only turgid amplifications and florid exuberancies,
according to the modern corrupt style of Hindūstān, which
distinguishes the compositions of that country from the chaste and
classical productions of Īrān.” Regarding his own translation, he says
that, while it will be found sufficiently literal, he has “not retained
those idioms which would not only be uncouth, but perhaps
unintelligible, in English: some repetitions I have taken the liberty of
omitting; and as most of the stories begin and end nearly in the same
manner, I have on such occasions compressed into a few lines the
subject of a page.” But since the translation was mainly designed to
aid learners of Persian, it seems strange that he should have deemed
it advisable to take any “liberties” such as he mentions; and an
examination of the text appended to his translation shows that he
has occasionally done something more than omit mere “repetitions”:
in several instances he has omitted whole passages, of which many
are requisite to the proper connection of the incidents related in the
stories; and this, too, in dealing with a text which is itself evidently
abridged from “the original”—if indeed an original Persian text now
exists.
 The more important deficiencies of Sir William Ouseley’s
translation—arising, as has been already explained, from his
imperfect text as well as from his own omissions—which will be
found included in the following Notes, have been supplied by my
obliging friend Mr William Platt, the veteran scholar, who has taken
the trouble of comparing the translation with the carefully edited
lithographed text of the Bakhtyār Nāma, published, at Paris, in
1839; and has, besides these notes of omissions, &c., kindly
furnished me with other valuable materials, of which I have gladly
availed myself, with the view of rendering this curious and in many
respects unique work more complete and interesting to general
English readers.
W. A. C.
 Notes on Chapter I.
It is customary for Muslim authors to place at the beginning of all
their compositions the Arabic invocation—
bi ’smi ’llāhi ’r-rahmānī ’r-rahīmī

which Sale renders: “In the name of the most merciful God!” but
which is more correctly translated: “In the name of God, the
Merciful, the Compassionate!” The `Ulama, or professors of religion
and law, interpret “the merciful” to signify “merciful in small things,”
and “the compassionate,” as “merciful in great things.” This
invocation, which is placed at the head of each chapter of the Kur’ān,
except the ninth, is not only also prefixed to every Muhammadan
book or writing, but is pronounced by Muslims on their undertaking
every lawful act. It is said that Muhammad borrowed it from a
similar practice of the Magians and Rabbins. Following the
invocation are usually praise and blessings on the Prophet, his
Family, and his Companions. In Sir William Ouseley’s printed text
only the customary invocation appears, which he does not give in his
English version. The following is a translation of the introduction as
given in the lithographed text:

“In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate!

Thanksgiving and praise without end, and salutation and eulogium
without stint, to the Supreme Benefactor, who is above all
commendation—the Holy-One, beyond our imagination! May He be
ever exalted on high, the well-furnished table of whose generosity is
spread over the surface of the earth, and on the table of whose
bounty every ant finds its food in safety! And salutation and praise to
all the prophets, and, above all, to our Prophet, who is the Apostle,
and the Director of the Path [of God], and the Prince of Creation, and
the purest of created beings—Muhammad, the Elect! May God be
propitious and vouchsafe salvation to him, his Family, and
Companions, one and all!—After this introduction [be it known], this
work and composition is divided into ten chapters [gates], and each
chapter affords to the intelligent moral examples, and to the wise
recognised forewarnings.”

Page 3. “The country of Sīstān,” or Sijistān (the ancient

Drangiana), lies to the east of Farsistān, or Persia proper. The
Governor is entitled Shah-i-nīmrūz (Sa`dī’s Gulistān, iii, 27). The
famous Rustam, the Hercules of Persia, held this country as a fief
under the Kings of Persia (see Ranking’s Wars and Sports of the
Mongols, p. 93).
Page 3. Āzād-bakht: “Free-Fortune”—“Fortunate.”
Page 3. Sipah-sālār, here employed as a proper name, signifies a
general, a commander of an army, especially a chief of cavalry: from
asp, a horse, and sālār, a leader. Sālār-i-jung, a leader in war, is one
of the titles given by Eastern princes to their nobles.
Page 3. “The rose of the garden and the moon of the heavenly
spheres were confounded at the superior lustre of her cheeks.”—The
comparison of a beautiful woman’s face to the moon, however absurd
it may appear to some readers, is a very favourite one with Orientals,
from Solomon downwards; it is, moreover, employed by several of
our own admired English poets, as Spenser, Shakspeare, and Pope.
In the Notes to my Arabian Poetry for English Readers many
parallel passages on this similitude are cited from Eastern and
Western poets.
Page 4. “A litter was provided.”—Several kinds of litters are used
in Persia and India. Garcin de Tassy, in a note to his French
translation of the Persian romance of Kāmarupa (chap. xxiii), quotes
the following interesting account of the palanquins and carriages of
India, from the Arāish-i-Mahfil:
“It is known that the gāri is an invention of the people of India.
They who use them are sheltered from heat, cold, wind, or rain. The
Bayadīres [or dancing-girls], who employ these carriages drawn by
oxen, put silver ornaments on their horns, hang small bells on the
axle-tree, and place negroes on the pole. In this sumptuous carriage
they frequent fairs, the shrines visited by pilgrims, and public
gardens. The astonished lookers-on are inclined to regard them as
strolling fairies, travelling on thrones to the sound of cymbals; ... but
the carriages of discreet females, named rath, are covered with
awnings, so closely fastened that the opening of the breadth of a hair
cannot be seen. Unfortunately the wheeled carriages jolt, yet in other
respects are comfortable. Three or four men seated can travel
without fatigue, chatting the meanwhile, and perform the journey,
enjoying the advantage of repose. Some of the gāri have curtains,
some are without. The small and light are called manjhalī, the very
light and diminutive, gainī, and the oxen drawing them are of a
peculiarly small breed, and are distinguished by the name of gaina.
These small carriages are preferable to the rath, which has four
wheels. In fact, they jolt but little, and are of sufficient importance to
carry the Amīr. There are some so well constructed, and adorned
with such beautiful paintings, that they throw into a frenzy those
who behold them; and the blinds are to such a degree pleasing and
elegant that, if the Sun shone as they were passing along, he would
descend from his car and mount thereon; and if the god Indra [King
of Heaven] should see them, he would quit his throne and place
himself therein. So that persons of high rank, who do not disdain to
use them, vary the furniture according to the seasons: during hot
weather the blinds are made of veti-ver;[27] in the rainy season, of
oiled silk; and in winter, of wool. Those, however, who use them
most frequently are traders, bankers, government servants, and
Muslim and Hindū women.—Besides the carriages just described
there is a kind of throne, called nālkī, for sovereigns; and for the
Amīr, palanquins with trimmings of fringe, termed pālkī. The
palanquins of ladies are the mahādol, chāndol, sukhpūl, and miāna;
and for the female poor, dolī. So that a lady, comme il faut, need
never walk, and no individual who is not mahram [who is not
privileged to visit the harem] can ever see her figure.”
Among the other kinds of litters or carriages used in the East are:
the imari, carried by elephants and camels, so named from Imar, the
inventor, also called hodaj, or hawdaj (howdah), made of wood, or
cloth stretched over a frame, and either open or covered at the top;
and the takht-i-ravan, usually carried by mules within shafts before
and behind: it is the Armamaxa, in which the children of Darius and
their attendants were carried. (Quintus Curtius, b. iii, c. 3.)
Page 4. “The King ... was at that moment returning from the
chase.”—Hunting the antelope, wild-ass, &c., has been the favourite
pastime of the kings and nobles of Persia from the most ancient
times. The modern kings of Persia have palaces in many parts of
their dominions, whither they resort for the climate or for the chase.
To these palaces are attached villages, in which provisions are
collected for the use of the court as soon as the motions of the King
are decided.[28]—For a graphic description of the Persian mode of
hunting the antelope, with hawks as well as dogs, see Sir John
Malcolm’s Sketches of Persia.
Page 4. “Kissed the ground of respectful obedience.”—The
Persians in their salutations and acts of submission so prostrate
themselves as almost to place their faces on the ground. This
prostration, called rūy zamīn (“the face on the ground”), is made by
bowing the body at right angles, the hands placed on the knees, and
the legs a little apart.—In allusion to this mode of salutation, the
Persian poet Hāfiz declares that, in the presence of his fair enslaver,
he would make besoms of his eyelashes; as Richardson paraphrases
it:
O for one heavenly glance of that dear maid,
How would my raptured heart with joy rebound!
Down to her feet I’d lowly bend my head,
And with my eyebrows sweep the hallowed ground.[29]

Lane, in the Notes to his translation of the Thousand and One

Nights, thus describes the Arabian (or modern Egyptian) mode of
paying respect to superiors: touching the ground, and then the lips
and forehead, or turban, with the right hand.—The Khalif Hakim
Biamri ’llah (11th century) issued an order that no one in future
should kiss the ground in his presence, or salute him in the highway,
or kiss his hand or stirrup; because to prostrate oneself before a
human being was an act of worship introduced by the Greeks; and
the only formula of salutation should be: “May protection be
vouchsafed to the Prince of the Faithful! May the mercy and
blessings of God rest upon him!”
Page 5. “Fixed by the fascinating beauty of the damsel,” &c.—The
lithographed text says: “From the effect of her glance the heart
became lost, and the bird of his soul began to take flight in the
atmosphere of love.... He pushed forward his courser, and recited
this gazal [or ode]:
My heart has fallen into the hand of a sprightly lover, of marvellous beauty;
This intelligent countenance, bright as the moon, has stolen my heart from the
hand of the Creator;
So that when I beheld the cypress form my unhappy heart began to bleed.
Her rose-like countenance has placed in a sorrowful soul a rankling thorn!”

Page 5. “Ruler of the world.” The text gives the address of the
litter-attendants to the King as follows:
“Whatever may be the advice of the Pādishāh who adorns the
world, it is the eye [i.e. the essence] of correct judgment.
Quatrain.

O mighty King of the chief city,

Thy counsel is always good;
How can any one oppose thy command—
Who would dare to express himself otherwise?

Thy command [will be] the support of the life and the happiness of
the father and the daughter. If they had seen in a dream this
happiness, they would not be able to contain themselves in this
world, especially in a state of wakefulness. But for every transaction
there is custom and propriety, [so that] if they [i.e. the litter
attendants] escort at this moment the daughter to the city, people
will raise doubts, and foster a suspicion touching the King, [on the
score] of undue haste and impatience, and will assert that the King
had carried off this lady by force and abuse of power, and [thus]
would arise [tittle-tattle respecting] the question and answer of the
lovers, and the exulting triumph[30] of the enemies. This is the right
course to pursue: if the King grant permission, we will convoy the
daughter to Sipahsālār, that he may do for this discharge of duty
whatever is the custom; and, having provided suitable paraphernalia,
send back the daughter to the Pādishāh; and thus both the vizier’s
dignity would be maintained, and also the [love] affair of the
Pādishāh be accomplished in a becoming manner.”
The giving of a dowry is indispensable, and without it no marriage
is legal. According to the rank in life of the bride, it consists of a
wardrobe, jewels, furniture, slaves, eunuchs, and a sum of money
varying in amount. No portion of the dowry can be taken away by the
husband against the wife’s wish. She remains absolute mistress of
the whole of her own property, inherited, or otherwise acquired.
(Voyages de M. Chardin en Perse, &c.; Lane’s Modern Egyptians.)
Page 6. “He caused the necessary ceremonies to be performed.”—
Here again the text is fuller than our translation:

“And the marriage-knot was tied in strict conformity with the law.
And when the ceremony was concluded, all the secretaries of the
government wrote letters of congratulation, and apprised Sipahsālār
of the submission to this insult. When Sipahsālār read the letters a
flood of tears poured down from his eyes, and the fire of enmity
kindled a flame in his heart. And although the King had settled the
matter religiously and according to the law, yet when all that had
transpired reached his ears, his heart bled to overflowing, by reason
of the excess of affection for his daughter. Sipahsālār, considering it
good policy, wrote a letter of thanks to his Excellency the Pādishāh,
replete with all kinds of expressions, evincing joy and felicity: ‘This is
indeed happiness, that such powerful support should be extended
towards me! I am utterly unable to quit myself of the obligation I am
under for this high honour, now that his Majesty has placed this
crown of glory on the head of his slave. As soon as I arrive in the
royal presence, I will kiss the ground of felicity.’
“Dissembling, he penned these phrases, and concealed the [evil]
intention of his wrath, and day and night was devising deceit and
stratagem.”

The Vizier of Āzādbakht could ill brook his rights as a father being
set at naught. The parent, or nearest adult relation, is always the
deputy of the future bride to effect the marriage contract. Moreover,
Sipahsālār considered this tyrannical proceeding as an ungrateful
return for his services with the army. Notwithstanding the King’s
rather brusque manner of wooing, however, the lady is represented
as being devotedly attached to him, and she braved the perils of the
desert for his sake.
Page 8. “To seek an asylum from the King of Kirmān.”—The text
has also the following quatrain:
 The King of Kirmān is a great dispenser of justice;
On our behalf he will bestow a look of indulgence
He will furnish troops, gold, and silver:
Unless this course be pursued, there is no other remedy.

Kirmān (Carmania) is a province of Persia (the ancient Gedrasia),

having to the north Khurasan, to the east Afghanistān and
Bilūchistān, to the south the Persian Gulf, to the west Fars and
Luristān. Carmanicus Sinus: the Gulf of Ormuz. Kirmān is the plural
of kirm, a worm, and the province where silkworms were originally
bred. It is celebrated for the cultivation of the white rose, from which
`itr-i-gul (attar of roses) is distilled; and also for a peculiar breed of
sheep, called dumbadār, small, short-legged, with a long bushy tail.
Page 9. “Directed their course towards the desert,” i.e. of Kirmān.
—The text has this quatrain:
Behold to what misery misfortune has thrown me!
Owing to breach of good faith, she has cast me into a sea of troubles;
For adverse Fortune has devised an evil design against me,
Inasmuch as she has separated friends from each other.

Page 9. “A hundred thousand lives such as mine are not in value

equal to a single hair of the King’s head.”—In less extravagant terms
does a distressed damsel in another romance express herself: “Of a
truth, noble man, you have displayed your compassionate nature;
but I cannot consent to save my body at the cost of yours: for who
ought to save a common stone by the sacrifice of a gem?”—Vetāla
Panchavinsati, or Twenty-five Tales of a Demon.
Page 10. “The Queen brought forth a son; in beauty he was lovely
as the moon,” &c.—The Orientals compare beautiful youths, as well
as damsels, to the moon: Hafiz styles Joseph the Hebrew patriarch—
who is throughout the Muhammadan world regarded as the type of
youthful beauty—“the Moon of Canaan.” Morier remarks, in his
Second Journey to Persia, &c.: “The Eastern women suffer little
from parturition, for the better sort of them are frequently on foot
the day after delivery, and out of all confinement on the third day
[this on the authority of Harmer, vol. iv, p. 434]. They are sometimes
‘delivered ere the midwives come in unto them’: Exodus, i, 19; and
the lower orders often deliver themselves. I knew an instance where
a peasant’s wife, in Turkey, who was at work in a vineyard, stepped
behind the hedge, delivered herself, and carried the child home slung
behind her back.”
Page 10. “They wrapped up the child in a cloak embroidered with
gold, and fastened a bracelet of large pearls,” &c.—In the legend of
Pope Gregory, the child is exposed with gold at his head and silver at
his feet (see the English Gesta Romanorum, chapter 51; edited by
Herrtage); and in one of the Tales of the Vetāla, a child is similarly
exposed, with a sum of gold, at the gate of a royal palace, and the
King adopts him as his son and successor (Kathā Sarit Sāgara,
Ocean of the Rivers of Narrative).
Page 10. “He sent his servants to welcome them, and received
them with the greatest respect and hospitality;” that is, by a
deputation (istikbāl), one of the principal modes among the Persians
of doing honour to their guests. Those sent in advance to meet the
guests are called pīsh vāz, “openers of the way.” In the ninth chapter
we find the approaching guests met at the distance of two days’
journey[31] from the city. “On the day of our entry,” says Morier, in his
Second Journey, “we were met by the youngest son of the Amīnu-’d-
Dawla, a boy of about thirteen years of age, who received the
ambassador [Sir Gore Ouseley] with all the ease of an old courtier.”
So, too, the King of Kirmān “sent his own son and two attendants to
wait on Āzādbakht.”
Page 11. “The musicians singing and playing, and the guests
drinking.”—Music contributes as much as wine to the pleasures of an
Eastern carousal. “Wine,” they say, “is as the body, music is the soul,
and joy is their offspring.” The gamut, or scale of musical notes, is
called in the East, durr-imafassal, “separate pearls.” The musical
instruments commonly employed are: the Kānūn, the dulcimer or
harp; the sitār, a three-stringed instrument (from si, three, and tār,
string), whence cithara and guitar; and the arghān or orghanūn, the
organ. Old Persian writers describe the arghān as invented by
Iflatūn (Plato), and as superior to all psalteries (mazamīr), and used
in Yūnan (Ionia or Greece) and in Rūm (Iconium). Also the chang
(Arabic, junk), the harp; the rabāb, rebeck; the tambūr, tambourine;
and the barbat, or barbitan.—Morier, in his Second Journey (p. 92),
was treated with a concert of four musicians; “one of whom played
on the Kamāncha [viol]; a second sang, fanning his mouth with a
piece of paper to aid the undulations of his voice; the third was a
tambourine-player; and the last beat two little drums placed on the
ground before him.” Gentius, in a note to the Gulistān of Sa`dī, says
that “music is in such consideration [in Persia], that it is a maxim of
their sages, that when a king is about to die, if he leaves for his
successor a very young son, his aptitude for reigning should be
proved by some agreeable songs; and if the child is pleasurably
affected, then it is a sign of his capacity and genius, but if the
contrary, he should be declared unfit.”—It would appear that the old
Persian musicians, like Timotheus, know the secret art of swaying
the passions. The celebrated philosopher Alfarabi (who died about
the middle of the tenth century), among his other accomplishments,
excelled in music, in proof of which a curious anecdote is told.
Returning from the pilgrimage to Mecca, he introduced himself,
though a stranger, at the court of Sayfu-’d-Dawla, Sultan of Syria,
when a party of musicians chanced to be performing, and he joined
them. The prince admired his skill, and desiring to hear something of
his own, Alfarabi unfolded a composition, and distributed the parts
among the band. The first movement threw the prince and his
courtiers into violent and inextinguishable laughter, the next melted
all into tears, and the last lulled even the performers to sleep.—At the
retaking of Bagdād by the Turks, in 1638, when the springing of a
mine, whereby eight hundred janissaries perished, was the signal for
a general massacre, and thirty thousand Persians were put to the
sword, “a Persian musician, named Shāh Kūlī, who was brought
before Murād, played and sang so sweetly, first a song of triumph,
and then a dirge, that the Sultan, moved to pity by his music, gave
orders to stop the massacre.”[32]
Page 11. “His eyes were filled with tears.”—Although Muslims are
remarkably calm and resigned under the heaviest afflictions, yet they
do not consider the shedding of tears as either evidence of
effeminacy or inconsistent with a heroic mind.—Lane. In the old
Badawī Romance of `Antar (of which an epitome is given in my
Arabian Poetry for English Readers) the hero is frequently
represented as weeping.
Page 11. “The King of Kirmān then inquired into the particulars of
Āzādbakht’s misfortunes.”—It thus appears that, in accordance with
the time-honoured rules of Eastern hospitality, the King received
Āzādbakht as his guest without subjecting him to any preliminary
questioning; and only diffidently “inquired into the particulars” after
the unhappy monarch had informed him that he was a fugitive from
his kingdom. The old Arabs, like the old Scottish Highlanders, were
scrupulous in abstaining from inquiring the name and tribe of a
chance guest, lest he should prove an enemy; and if, after the guest
had eaten of their bread and salt, he was found to belong to a hostile
tribe or clan, he would be entertained during three days, should he so
desire, and then be dismissed unharmed.
Page 12. Farrukhsuwār: from farrukh, fortunate, happy, and
suwār, a cavalier, a horseman; especially a Persian chief, as being
skilled in horsemanship and archery. Suwār-i-Sīstān: Rustam, the
famous Persian hero.
Page 13. “He resolved to adopt the infant as his own.”—The
Muhammadan law (says Lane) allows the adoption of sons, provided
that the person to be adopted consents to the act, if of age to judge
for himself; also that he has been deprived of his parents by death or
other means; and that there be such a difference of age between the
two parties as might subsist between a natural father and son. The
adopted son enjoys the same right of inheritance as the natural son.
—Farrukhsuwār, we see, though a chief of banditti, yet took care that
his adopted son should be “instructed in all the necessary
accomplishments.” The adoption of sons is universal throughout the
East—in Persia, India, Japan; in the latter country, “the principle of
adoption,” says Mr Mitford, in his Tales of Old Japan, “prevails
among all classes, from the Emperor down to his meanest subject;
nor is the family line considered to have been broken because an
adopted son has succeeded to the estate.”
Page 13. Khudā-dād, i.e., “granted by God”: Deodatus; Theodore.
Page 13. “Able to fight, alone, five hundred men.” This is one of the
few instances of Oriental hyperbole which occur in the work; and
since we do not find our hero represented subsequently as
distinguishing himself by his prowess, except on the occasion which
led to his capture, it must be considered as introduced by the author
conventionally, or by way of embellishment. The heroes of Eastern
romance, for the most part, are not only beautiful as the moon, and
accomplished in all the arts and sciences, but also strong and
courageous as a lion. In the romance of Dūshwanta and Sakūntalā,
an episode of the great Indian epic poem, Mahābharata, the son of
the beautiful heroine is thus described: “Sakūntalā was delivered of a
son, of inconceivable strength, bright as the God of Fire, the image of
Dūshwanta, endowed with personal beauty and generosity of soul....
This mighty child seemed as if he could destroy lions with the points
of his white teeth. He bore on his hand the mark of a wheel, which is
the sign of sovereignty. His person was beautiful, his head capacious,
he possessed great bodily strength, and his appearance was that of a
celestial. During the short time that he remained under the care of
Kanwa, he grew exceedingly; and when he was only six years old, his
strength was so great that he was wont to bind such beasts as lions,
tigers, elephants, wild boars, and buffaloes to the trees about the
hermitage. He would even mount them, ride them about, and play
with them to tame them; whence the inhabitants of Kanwa’s
hermitage gave him a name: ‘Let him,’ said they, ‘be called Sarva-
damana, because he tameth all;’ and thus the child obtained the
name of Sarva-damana.”—And the Arabian hero `Antar, while yet a
mere stripling, slew a wolf, and carried home its paws to his slave-
mother as a trophy. (Compare with this the youthful exploit of David
with a lion and a bear, 1 Sam. xvii, 34, 35.) So, too, in the Early
English Romance of Sir Bevis of Hampton;—when only seven years
old, Bevis knocked down two stout men with his cudgel; and while
still in his “teens” he slew single-handed sixty Saracen knights.
Page 14. “The chief of the caravan.”—The Mihtar Kārwān, or
Kārwān Bash, held a position of responsibility and importance. By
the payment of armed attendants he took precautions against the
attack of brigands, as the merchants who formed a caravan were, it is
said, on most occasions, so devoid of courage that they cried
“quarter” at the mere sight of a drawn sword.
Page 15. “He also put on him his own robe” (Kabā-i Khāss).—The
Kabā is a tunic, or long cloth coat, of any colour, quite open in front,
and worn over the shirt, and is the special garment of the rich, and so
distinguished by Sa`dī (Gulistān, ch. ii, story 17) from the aba, or
abaya, a kind of woollen cloak, either black or striped brown and
white, the garment of the poor.
Page 15. “The name of Bakhtyār,” that is, “he whom Fortune
assists,” or, “Fortune-befriended.”
Page 16. “The keys of the treasury” were of gold.
 Page 16. “A splendid robe of honour.”—A Khil`at, or dress of
honour, is bestowed by Eastern monarchs on men of learning and
genius, as well as on tributary princes on their accession to their
principalities, and on viceroys and governors of provinces. The
custom is very ancient; see Esther vi, 8, 9. “A common Khil`at,” says
Morier, “consists of a Kāba, or coat; a Kemerbend, or zone; a gūch
pīch, or shawl for the head: when it is intended to be more
distinguishing, a sword or a dagger is superadded. To persons of
distinction rich furs are given, such as a Katabī, or a Koordī; but
when the Khal`at is complete it consists exactly of the same articles
as the present which Cyrus made to Syennesis, namely: a horse with
a golden bridle; a golden chain; a golden sword[33]; besides the dress,
which is complete in all its parts.”[34]—In India an elephant and a
palanquin splendidly decorated are added to the dress, sword, &c. Dr
Forbes, in a note to his translation of the Bāgh o Bahār (Garden and
Spring), the Hindustani version of the entertaining Persian romance,
Kissa Chehar Dervish, or Tale of the Four Dervishes, remarks that
“in the zenith of the Mogul empire Khil`ats were expensive honours,
as the receivers were obliged to make presents for the Khil`ats they
received. The perfection of these Oriental dresses,” he adds, “is to be
so stiff with embroidery as to stand on the floor unsupported.”—After
Rustam’s Seven Adventures in releasing Kai Kaus from the power of
the White Giant, we read in Firdausī’s Shāh Nāma (or Book of Kings)
that he received from Kaus a splendid Khil`at besides other
magnificent presents. And in the Romance of `Antar, King Zuhayr
causes a great feast to be prepared to celebrate the defeat of the tribe
of Taï, which was chiefly due to the hero; at which he presents `Antar
with a robe worked with gold, girds on him a trusty sword, and
placing in his hand a pike of Khāta, and mounting him on a fine Arab
horse, proclaims him champion of the tribes of `Abs and `Adnān.
Page 16. “There were Ten Viziers.”—“Wezeer,” says Lane, “is an
Arabic word, and is pronounced by the Arabs as I have written it, but
the Turks and Persians pronounce the first letter V. There are three
opinions respecting the etymology of this word. Some derive it from
wizr (a burden), because the Wezeer bears the burden of the King;
others, from wezer (a refuge), because the King has recourse to the
counsels of his Wezeer, and his knowledge and prudence; others,
again, from azr (back, or strength), because the King is strengthened
by his Wezeer, as the human frame is strengthened by the back. The
proper and chief duties of a Wezeer are explained by the above, and
by a saying of the Prophet: ‘Whosoever is in authority over Muslims,
if God would prosper him, He giveth him a virtuous Wezeer, who
when he forgetteth his duty remindeth him, and when he
remembereth assisteth him; but if He would do otherwise, He giveth
him an evil Wezeer, who when he forgetteth doth not remind him,
and when he remembereth doth not assist him.’”—The Kur’ān and
the Sūnna (or Traditions) both distinctly authorise a sovereign to
select a Vizier to assist him in the government. The Prophet makes
Moses say (Kur. xx, 30): “Give me a counsellor [Ar. Wezeer] of my
family, namely Aaron my brother;” and again, in ch. xxv, 37: “We
appointed him [Moses] Aaron his brother for a counsellor.” Wahidi,
in his commentary on the Kur’ān, says: “Wezeer signifies refuge and
assistance.” In the fourth year of his mission Muhammad assumed
the prophetic office, when “he prepared a banquet, a lamb, as it is
said, and a bowl of milk, for the entertainment of forty guests of the
race of Hashem. ‘Friends and kinsmen,’ said Muhammad to the
assembly, ‘I offer you, and I alone can offer, the most precious of
gifts, the treasures of this world and of the world to come. God has
commanded me to call you to His service. Who among you will
support my burthen? Who among you will be my companion and
my vizier?’”—Gibbon, chap. 1.
King Āzādbakht, we see, had no fewer than ten of such “burden-
bearers”; in chapter ix there is another King with ten viziers; and in
an ancient Indian romance referred to by El-Mas’ūdī in his Meadows
of Gold and Mines of Gems, the same number of viziers is given to a
king: “Shelkand and Shimas, or the Story of an Indian King and his
Ten Viziers”; in what is probably a modernised version of the same
romance, included in the Thousand and One Nights, under the title
of “King Jilāa, the Vizier Shimas, and their Sons,” there are however
but Seven Viziers—the number in most of the romances of the
Sindibād cycle. According to the learned Imam El-Jara’ī, cited by
Lane, ten is the proper number of counsellors for any man: “It is
desirable,” says he, “for a man, before he enters upon any important
undertaking, to consult ten intelligent persons among his particular
friends; or if he have not more than five such friends, let him consult
each of them twice; or if he have not more than one friend, he should
consult him ten times, at ten different visits[35];—if he have not one to
consult, let him return to his wife and consult her, and whatever she
advises him to do, let him do the contrary, so shall he proceed rightly
in his affair and attain his object.”—This reminds me of a story told
of Khōja Nasru-’d-Dīn Efendī, the Turkish joker, who, wishing to
make Timūr a present of some fruit, consulted his wife as to whether
he should take him figs or quinces, and on her answering, “Oh,
quinces, of course,” the Khōja, reflecting that a woman’s advice is
never good, took Timūr a basket of figs; and when the emperor
ordered his attendants to pelt the Khōja on his bald pate with the
ripe, juicy figs, he thanked Heaven that he had not taken his wife’s
advice: “for had I, as she advised, brought quinces instead of figs, my
head had surely been broken!”[36] This most unjust estimate of
women, so generally held by Muslims and giving rise to such
proverbial sayings as “women have long hair and short wits,” is in
accordance with the atrocious saying ascribed (falsely, let us hope) to
the Prophet: “I stood at the gate of Paradise, and lo! most of its
inmates were poor; and I stood at the gate of Hell, and lo! most of its
inmates were women!” Contrast this with the following passage from
the Mahābharata: “The wife is half the man; a wife is man’s dearest
friend; a wife is the source of his religion, his worldly profit, and his
love. He who hath a wife maketh offerings in his house. Those who
have wives are blest with good fortune. Wives are friends, who by
their gentle speech soothe ye in your retirement. In the performance
of religious duties they are as fathers; in your distresses they are as
mothers[37]; and they are a refreshment to those who are travellers in
the rugged paths of life.”
Page 16. “Indulged in the pleasures of wine.”—The Kur’ān
prohibits the use of wine and all other intoxicating liquors: “They will
ask thee concerning wine and lots; answer, in both there is great sin”
(ch. ii, 216). Some of the early followers of the Prophet held this text
as doubtful, and continued to indulge in wine; but another text
enjoins them not to come to prayer while they are drunk, until they
know what they would say (ch. iv, 46). From this it would appear that
Muhammad “meant merely to restrain his followers from
unbecoming behaviour, and other evil effects of intoxication;”
serious quarrels, however, resulting from drinking wine, a text in
condemnation of the practice was issued: “Ye who have become
believers! verily wine, and lots, and images, and divining arrows are
an abomination of the work of the Devil; therefore avoid them that ye
may prosper” (ch. v, 92).—Mills was certainly in error in stating that
“for ages before the preaching of the Prophet of Mecca, wine was but
little drunk either in Egypt or Arabia.”[38] In the Mu`allaqāt, or
Seven Poems suspended in the Temple at Mecca, which present true
pictures of Arabian manners and customs during the century
immediately preceding the time of Muhammad, wine-drinking is
frequently mentioned. Thus the poet `Amru calls for his morning
draught of rich hoarded wine, saying that it is the liquor which
diverts the lover from his passion, and even causes the miser to
forget his pelf; Lebeid says that he often goes to the shop of the wine-
merchant, when he spreads his flag in the air, and sells his wine at a
high price; and the poet-hero `Antar quaffs old wine when the
noontide heat is abated. However this may be, the law of the Kur’ān
is clear—believers are not allowed to drink intoxicating liquors. Yet it
would appear, from the tales of the Thousand and One Nights, that
wine was extensively drunk by the higher classes of Muslims in all
countries until a comparatively recent date; and assuredly the wine
there mentioned was not the harmless beverage which the Prophet
indulged in and permitted to his followers—“prepared by putting
grapes or dry dates in water to extract their sweetness, and suffering
the liquor to ferment slightly until it acquired a little sharpness or
pungency”—since we read in the story, for instance, of “The Three
Ladies of Bagdād and the Porter,” that wine was drunk to
intoxication. The modern Persians justify their occasional excessive
wine-drinking by the remark: “there is as much sin in a flagon as in a
glass;”[39] and the Turks despise the small glasses commonly used by
Europeans in their potations.[40] Cantemir, in his History of the
Othman Empire, relates a curious story of how Murād IV, the
seventeenth Turkish Sultan (1622–1639), became a drunkard:

Not content to drink wine in private, Murād compelled even the

Muftis and other ministers to drink with him, and also, by a public
edict, allowed wine to be sold and drunk by men of all ranks. It is
said Murād was led into this degrading vice by a man named Bakrī
Mustafa. As the Sultan was one day going about the market-place in
disguise, he chanced to see this man wallowing in the mud, almost
dead drunk. Wondering at the novelty of the thing, he inquired of his
attendants what was the matter with the man, who seemed to him a
lunatic. Being told that the fellow was drunk with wine, he wanted to