Blacklow Hill

Blacklow Hill, Warwickshire

The light and skies at lunchtime today were magnificent. Bright but with that level of chill that when mixed with moderate exercise can bring on a nose sniffle. I took advantage and enjoyed a circular walk between Old Milverton and Guys Cliffe where fields of new shoots were resplendent in green.

Prominent hereabouts and seen in the picture is the view towards Blacklow Hill. The hill is notorious as the place of execution of King Edward II's first favourite, Piers Gaveston, on June 19 1312.

Gaveston and Edward met in 1300 when both were aged about 16. Gaveston was the son of a Gascon lord who had loyally served KIng Edward I, Edward's father. The relationship may have been homosexual. Such a view was widely held in the early 14th century, but modern historians are unable to agree. Certainly Edward fathered four children by his wife Isabella. At any rate, by 1307 Edward I believed he had sufficient cause to banish Gaveston from the realm. However, the old king died soon thereafter and Edward, now Edward II, recalled him. Lavished with land, money and the title Earl of Cornwall, Gaveston swiftly became the new king's principal adviser and the gateway to royal patronage. That Gaveston was so openly favoured and arrogant with it, angered the barons. Opposition to Gaveston mounted to a point where the king was compelled to accept the Lords Ordainers, a rule committee created for the better management of the kingdom and the royal household.

By 1311 the Ordainers directed that Gaveston should be permanently exiled, and in November of that year, Gaveston departed. Yet by January 1312 he was back in England at the invitation of the king, who declared that his exile had been unlawful.

As a consequence the barons gathered their armies. The king and Gaveston stuck together. They were nearly caught in Newcastle but managed to flea to Scarborough. From Scarborough Edward ran off to York, leaving Gaveston to defend the castle from siege. Gaveston was unable to hold out and in May 1312, after agreeing mediated terms, surrendered Scarborough to the Earl of Pembroke. From Scarborougth he was taken south to Deddington near Banbury and held at the rectory there. At Deddington and to Pembroke's chagrin, on 9 June 1312 Guy Beauchamp, the Earl of Warwick, abducted Gaveston and brought him to his castle at Warwick. Here he faced a pseudo-trial on charges of disobeying the Ordainers and was condemned to die. On 19 June he was taken from Warwick along the road to Kenilworth and on this hill, run through with swords and beheaded.