England, which ultimately came to fruition in September 1326. Their forces numbered only about 1,500 mercenaries to begin with, but the majority of the nobility rallied to them throughout September and October, preferring to stand with them rather than Edward and the hated Despensers. The Despensers fled west with the King, with a sizeable sum from the treasury; however, the escape was unsuccessful. Separated from the elder Despenser, the King and the younger Despenser were deserted by most of their followers and were captured near Neath in mid-November. King Edward was imprisoned and later forced to abdicate in favour of his son Edward III. The elder Despenser was hanged and then beheaded at Bristol on 27 October 1326, and the younger Despenser was brought to trial. Trial and execution Anticipating that he would receive no mercy, Despenser tried to starve himself before his trial, but he was unsuccessful. He did face trial on 24 November 1326, in the market square Hereford, before Roger, Isabella and the Lancastrian lords. William Trussell read out the list of charges. The list included: He was sentenced to death. As a thief he was sentenced to hanging and as a traitor he was sentenced to being drawn and quartered. Despenser was stripped of his clothes and had biblical verses written on his skin before being dragged by four horses across the city to the walls of his own castle where a scaffold had been erected. There he was hung, drawn and quartered in the presence of Isabella, Mortimer and their followers. In Froissart's account of his execution, Despenser was tied firmly to a ladder and his genitals sliced off and burned while he was still conscious. His entrails were slowly pulled out; finally, his heart was cut out and thrown into a fire. Froissart (or, rather, Jean le Bel's chronicle, on which he relied) is the only source to mention castration; other contemporary accounts have Despenser hanged, drawn and quartered, which usually did not involve emasculation. Despenser's corpse was decapitated and the head displayed above the gates of London. His torso was cut into four pieces and likewise were displayed above the gates of York, Bristol, Newcastle and Dover. Remains Four years later, in December 1330, his widow was given permission to gather and bury Despenser's remains at the family's Gloucestershire estate, but only the head, a thigh bone and a few vertebrae were returned