[25] The king had previously been treated with exceeding cruelty. It is said that on his way to Berkeley his conductors, for greater concealment of their captive, caused him to dismount from his horse and a barber to shave his head and beard with cold water from a ditch, telling him that “for once cold water must serve his purpose.” Covering his face with his hands, the unhappy monarch wept, saying, “Woulde they or noulde they, he woulde have warm water for his beard!” and to the end that he might keep his promise, he began to shed tears plentifully. This incident is related by Stowe on the authority of Thomas de Mori, “a worshipfull knight that then lived, and wrote in the French tongue, what he sawe with his eies or heard credily reported by them that sawe and some that were actors.” Lord Berkeley was allowed 5_l._ per diem for the monarch’s expenses during his imprisonment, and acquitted of all participation in the murder; Gournay was subsequently arrested at Marseilles and beheaded on shipboard, “it was supposed,” according to Hume, “because some nobles and prelates in England were anxious to prevent any discovery he might make of his accomplices.” Maltravers, many years afterwards, sued for mercy and obtained it. The greatest culprit seems to have escaped: Adam bishop of Hereford lent himself to the schemes of Mortimer and the queen, and wrote as follows to the knights who had the king in custody, “Edvardum occidere nolite timere bonum est,” purposely omitting the punctuations, so that the passage was capable of a double meaning, advising either to slay or spare the royal prisoner, and supplying a safe exit for the writer out of any difficulty that might subsequently arise.
[26] The following notes are extracted from Smith’s “Lives of the Lord Berkeleys,” edited by Fosbrooke:--
“The accompt of William Aside, receiver to the Lord Berkeley, accomptinge for a year from Mmass. anno 20 of Edward II. to the same feast in the first of Edward III., sheweth that he received to this lord’s use 700_l._ de camera scaccarii domini regis, out of the receipt in the king’s exchequer, for the expences of the house of the king’s father whilest he was at Berkeley; and hath in his said accompt an allowance of 31_s._ 1_d._ paid by him to Sir Thomas de Gournay, sent to Nottingham from Berkeley by the said Lord Berkeley to advertize the queene and the king her sonne of the death of the late king his father there. And 15th May the same year an allowance of 500_l._ more from the kynge, paid him by John de Langton, keeper of the castle of Kerfilly, for the same cause.