Queen Isabella and her party had arrived in England with the removal of the Despensers as their publicly proclaimed programme and not the deposition of the king. Deposition was, as Bertie Wilkinson rightly expresses it, ‘a tremendous step’. The execution of Lancaster and of the rest of the Contrariants had made political murder or execution for treason (whichever way you happen to view it) into one of the most terrifying and, for many notables, inadmissible recent innovations. How much more terrifying, to the point of seeming at first almost unthinkable, would be the deposition of a king, especially as this might ultimately involve his death as well.

These unique difficulties made the new rulers very hesitant about how they might best proceed. The delay in holding parliament presumably arose in part from these uncertainties. Originally summoned to meet on 14 December, it was then postponed until after the Christmas festivities, while the de facto rulers dealt with the embarrassing question of the de iure ruler. The problems which had to be faced were, firstly, the personal ones of how readily their supporters, including the young Prince Edward, would countenance the removal of the king. The second question was the more academic one of how a veneer of legitimacy could be laid over an act which was undoubtedly illegal. This was largely a question of ‘staging’.