The Despenser War

Despenser War

Date	1321–1322
Location	Glamorgan, Wales and northern England
Result	Royalist victory

Belligerents

Kingdom of England

Marcher Lords

Commanders and leaders

Strength

Royalist Army (12,000)

over 1,000; less than 12,000

The Despenser War (1321–22) was a baronial revolt against Edward II of England led by the Marcher Lords Roger Mortimer and Humphrey de Bohun. The rebellion was fuelled by opposition to Hugh Despenser the Younger, the royal favourite. After the rebels' summer campaign of 1321, Edward was able to take advantage of a temporary peace to rally more support and a successful winter campaign in southern Wales, culminating in royal victory at the battle of Boroughbridge in the north of England in March 1322. Edward's response to victory was his increasingly harsh rule until his fall from power in 1326.

The initial success of the rebels reflected the power of the Marcher Lords. Since Edward I's conquest of Wales, "[t]he marcher privileges remained undiminished, and the marcher energies which could no longer find employment in the struggle against the Welsh, sought new direction in the fertile field of English politics." The death of the last Earl of Gloucester also meant the redistribution of his vast estates and lordships in Ireland and Wales. The important Lordship of Glamorgan passed to the late earl's brother-in-law, the younger Despenser, married to his eldest sister Eleanor.

The Lords Ordainers, the powerful baronial hegemony led by the Earl of Lancaster, despised the younger Despenser and his father, the elder Despenser, on account of the influence they both wielded over the king. The council of Ordainers was formed in 1311 to reform the King's household, restrict his royal prerogatives, supervise the economy, and they insisted on the banishment of his then favourite, Piers Gaveston, husband of the earl of Gloucester's sister Margaret.

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