busy putting down uprisings in their lands, the Despensers were able to return. Edward, with the Despensers backing him once more, was able to crush the rebellion, securing first Mortimer's surrender and then that of Lancaster, who was subsequently executed. King Edward quickly reinstated Despenser as royal favourite. The period from the Despensers' return from exile until the end of Edward II's reign was a time of uncertainty in England. With the main baronial opposition leaderless and weak, having been defeated at the Battle of Boroughbridge, and Edward willing to let them do as they pleased, the Despensers were left unchecked. This maladministration caused hostile feeling for them and, by extension, Edward II. Ultimately, a year after his surrender and imprisonment, Mortimer escaped to France, where he began organizing a new rebellion. Criminality Like his father, the younger Despenser was accused of widespread criminality. Amongst other examples, Despenser seized the Welsh lands of his wife's inheritance while ignoring the claims of his two brothers-in-law. He further cheated his sister-in-law Elizabeth de Clare out of Gower and Usk, and forced Alice de Lacy, 4th Countess of Lincoln, to give up her lands to him. He had murdered Llywelyn Bren in 1318 while the Welshman was being held hostage, and during his exile he spent a period of time as a pirate in the English Channel, "a sea monster, lying in wait for merchants as they crossed the sea". In addition he imprisoned Sir William Cokerell in the Tower of London and extorted money from him. Accusations of sodomy The 14th-century court historian Jean Froissart wrote that "he was a sodomite", and Adam Orleton, the Bishop of Winchester, also levelled the accusation at him (although Orleton's accusation came when he was defending himself from having claimed the same of King Edward). According to Froissart, Despenser's penis was severed and burned at his execution as a punishment for his sodomy and heresy. In 1326, as Isabella and Mortimer invaded, Orleton gave a sermon in which he publicly denounced Edward, who had fled with Despenser, as a sodomite. The annals of Newenham Abbey in Devon recorded, "the king and his husband" fled to Wales. Relationship with Isabella and downfall Queen Isabella had a special dislike for Despenser. While Isabella was in France to negotiate between her husband and the French king, she formed an alliance with Roger Mortimer and began planning an invasion of