THE FALL OF EDWARD II. AND THE RULE OF ISABELLA AND MORTIMER.
During the deliberations of the parliament of York, the truce with
Bruce expired, and forthwith came the news that the Scots had once more
crossed the border. On this occasion Bruce raided the country from
Carlisle to Preston, burning every open town on his way, though sparing
most of the religious houses. At Cartmel, Lancaster, and Preston,
favoured monastic buildings alone stood entire amidst the desolation
wrought by the Scots. No effective opposition was offered to them, and
after a three weeks' foray, they recrossed the Solway.
As in 1314 and 1318, the restoration of order was followed by an
attempt to put down Bruce. In August, 1322, Edward assembled his forces
at Newcastle and invaded Scotland. Berwick was unsuccessfully besieged
and the Lothians laid waste. The Scots still had the prudence to
withdraw beyond the Forth, and avoid battle in the open field. By the
beginning of September, pestilence and famine had done their work on
the invaders. Unable to find support in the desolate fields of Lothian,
the, English returned to their own land, having accomplished nothing.
The Scots followed on their tracks, but with such secrecy that they
penetrated into the heart of Yorkshire before Edward was aware of their
presence. In October they suddenly swooped down on the king, when he
was staying at Byland abbey. Some troops which accompanied him were
encamped on a hill between Byland and Rievaux. They were attacked by
the Scots and defeated; their leader, John of Brittany, was taken
prisoner, and Edward only avoided capture by a precipitate flight from
Byland to Bridlington. All Yorkshire was reduced to abject terror, and
Edward's hosts, the canons of Bridlington, removed with all their
valuables to Lincolnshire, and sent one of their number to Bruce at
Malton to purchase immunity for their estates. After a month the Scots
went home, leaving famine, pestilence, and misery in their train. The
Despensers thus proved themselves not less incompetent to defend
England than Thomas of Lancaster.
As the state afforded no protection, each private person had to make
the best terms he could for himself. Even the king's favourite, Louis
of Beaumont, the illiterate Bishop of Durham, entered into negotiations
with the Scots, while the Archbishop of York issued formal permission
to religious houses of his diocese to treat with the excommunicated
followers of Bruce. Not only timid ecclesiastics, but well-tried
soldiers found in private dealings with the Scots the only remedy for
their troubles. After the Byland surprise, Harclay, the new Earl of
Carlisle, the victor of Boroughbridge, and the warden of the marches,
dismissed his troops, sought out Bruce at Lochmaben, and made an
arrangement with him, by which it was resolved that a committee of six
English and six Scottish magnates should be empowered to conclude peace
between the two countries on the basis of recognising him as King of
Scots. There was great alarm at court when Harclay's treason was known.
A Cumberland baron, Anthony Lucy, was instructed to apprehend the
culprit, and forcing his way into Carlisle castle by a stratagem,
captured the earl with little difficulty. In March, 1323, Harclay
suffered the terrible doom of treason. He justified his action to the
last, declaring that his only motive was a desire to procure peace, and
convincing many of the north-countrymen of the innocence of his
motives. To such a pass had England been reduced that those who
honestly desired that the farmers of 'Cumberland should once more till
their fields in peace, saw no other means of gaining their end than by
communication with the enemies of their country.
The disgrace of Byland and the tragedy of Carlisle showed that it was
idle to pretend to fight the Scots any longer. Negotiations for peace
were entered upon; Pembroke and the younger Despenser being the chief
English commissioners. Peace was found impossible, as English pride
still refused to recognise the royal title of King Robert, but a
thirteen years' truce was arranged without any difficulty. This treaty
of 1323 practically concluded the Scottish war of independence. Bruce
then easily obtained papal recognition of his title, though English
ill-will long stood in the way of the remission of his sentence of
excommunication. His martial career, however, was past, and he could
devote his declining years to the consolidation of his kingdom and the
restoration of its material prosperity. He reorganised the national
army, built up a new nobility by distributing among his faithful
followers the estates of the obstinate friends of England, and first
called upon the royal burghs of Scotland to send representatives to the
Scottish parliament. He had made Scotland a nation, and nobly redeemed
the tergiversation and violence of his earlier career.
Among Harclay's motives for treating with the Scots had been his
distrust of the Despensers. As generals against the Scots and as
administrators of England, they manifested an equal incapacity. Their
greed and insolence revived the old enmities, and they proved strangely
lacking in resolution to grapple with emergencies. Nevertheless they
ruled over England for nearly five years in comparative peace. This
period, unmarked by striking events, is, however, evidence of the
exhaustion of the country rather than of the capacity of the Earl of
Winchester and the lord of Glamorgan. The details of the history bear
witness to the relaxation of the reins of government, the prevalence of
riot and petty rebellion, the sordid personal struggles for place and
power, the weakness which could neither collect the taxes, enforce
obedience to the law, nor even save from humiliation the most trusted
agents of the government.
The Despensers' continuance in power rested more on the absence of
rivals than on their own capacity. The strongest of the royalist earls,
Aymer of Pembroke, died in 1324. As he left no issue, his earldom
swelled the alarmingly long roll of lapsed dignities. None of the few
remaining earls could step into his place, nor give Edward the wise
counsel which the creator of the middle party had always provided.
Warenne was brutal, profligate, unstable, and distrusted; Arundel had
no great influence; Richmond was a foreigner, and of little personal
weight, and the successors of Humphrey of Hereford and Guy of Warwick
were minors, suspected by reason of their fathers' treasons. The only
new earl was Henry of Lancaster, who in 1324 obtained a partial
restitution of his brother's estates and the title of Earl of
Leicester. Prudent, moderate, and high-minded, Henry stood in strong
contrast to his more famous brother. But the tragedy of Pontefract and
his unsatisfied claim on the Lancaster earldom stood between Henry and
the government, and the imprudence of the Despensers soon utterly
estranged him from the king, though he was the last man to indulge in
indiscriminate opposition, and Edward dared not push his powerful
cousin to extremities. In these circumstances, the king had no wise or
strong advisers whose influence might counteract the Despensers. His
loneliness and isolation made him increasingly dependent upon the
favourites.
The older nobles were already alienated, when the Despensers provoked a
quarrel with the queen. Isabella was a woman of strong character and
violent passions, with the lack of morals and scruples which might have
been expected from a girlhood passed amidst the domestic scandals of
her father's household. She resented her want of influence over her
husband, and hated the Despensers because of their superior power with
him. The favourites met her hostility by an open declaration of
warfare. In 1324 the king deprived her of her separate estate, drove
her favourite servants from court, and put her on an allowance of a
pound a day. The wife of the younger Hugh, her husband's niece, was
deputed to watch her, and she could not even write a letter without the
Lady Despenser's knowledge. Isabella bitterly chafed under her
humiliation. She was, she declared, treated like a maidservant and made
the hireling of the Despensers. Finding, however, that nothing was to
be gained by complaints, she prudently dissembled her wrath and waited
patiently for revenge.
The Despensers' chief helpers were among the clergy. Conspicuous among
them were Walter Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter, the treasurer, and Robert
Baldock, the chancellor. The records of Stapledon's magnificence
survive in the nave of his cathedral church, and in Exeter College,
Oxford; but the great builder and pious founder was a worldly, greedy,
and corrupt public minister. So unpopular was he that, in 1325, it was
thought wise to remove him from office. Thereupon another building
prelate, William Melton, Archbishop of York, whose piety and charity
long intercourse with courtiers had not extinguished, abandoned his
northern flock for London and the treasury. But the best of officials
could do little to help the unthrifty king. Edward was so poorly
respected that he could not even obtain a bishopric for his chancellor.
On two occasions the envoys sent to Avignon, to urge Baldock's claims
on vacant sees, secured for themselves the mitre destined for the
minister. In this way John Stratford became Bishop of Winchester and
William Ayermine, Bishop of Norwich. Edward had not even the spirit to
show manifest disfavour to these self-seeking prelates, but his
inaction was so clearly the result of weakness that it involved no
gratitude, and the two bishops secretly hated the ruling clique, as
likely to do them an evil turn if it dared. Nor were the older prelates
better contented or more loyal. The primate Reynolds was deeply
irritated by Melton's appointment as treasurer. Burghersh, the Bishop
of Lincoln, was a nephew of Badlesmere, and anxious to avenge his
uncle. Adam Orleton, Bishop of Hereford, was a dependant of the
Mortimers, who took his surname from one of their Herefordshire manors.
Forgiven for his share in the revolt of 1322, he cleverly contrived in
1324 the escape of his patron, Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, from the
Tower. The marcher made his way to France, but his ally felt the full
force of the king's wrath. He was deprived of his temporalities, and,
when the Church spread her ægis over him, the court procured the
verdict of a Herefordshire jury against him. Thus the impolicy of the
crown combined the selfish worldling with the zealot for the Church in
a common opposition. Like Isabella, Orleton bided his time, and Edward
feared to complete his disgrace.
In such ways the king and the Despensers proclaimed their incapacity to
the world. The Scottish truce, the wrongs of Henry of Lancaster, the
humiliation of the queen, the alienation of the old nobles, the fears
of greedy prelates,--each of these was remembered against them.
Gradually every order of the community became disgusted. The feeble
efforts of Edward to conciliate the Londoners met with little response.
Weak rule and the insecurity of life and property turned away the heart
of the commons from the king. It was no wonder that men went on
pilgrimage to the little hill outside Pontefract, where Earl Thomas had
met his doom, or that rumours spread that the king was a changeling and
no true son of the great Edward. But though the power of the king and
the Despensers was thoroughly undermined, the absence of leaders and
the general want of public spirit still delayed the day of reckoning.
At last, the threatening outlook beyond the Channel indirectly
precipitated the crisis.
The relations of France and England remained uneasy, despite the
marriage of two English kings in succession to ladies of the Capetian
house. The union of Edward I. and Margaret of France had not done much
to help the settlement of the disputed points in the interpretation of
the treaty of Paris of 1303, and the match between Edward II and his
stepmother's niece had been equally ineffective. The restoration of
Gascony in 1303 had never been completed, and in the very year of the
treaty a decree of the parliament of Paris had withdrawn the homage of
the county of Bigorre from the English duke. Within the ceded
districts, the conflict of the jurisdictions of king and duke became
increasingly accentuated. Having failed to hold Gascony by force of
arms, Philip the Fair aspired to conquer it by the old process of
stealthily undermining the traditional authority of the duke. Appeals
to Paris became more and more numerous. The agents of the king wandered
at will through Edward's Gascon possessions, and punished all loyalty
to the lawful duke by dragging the culprits before their master's
courts. The ineptitude which characterised all Edward's subordinates
was particularly conspicuous among his Gascon seneschals and their
subordinates. While the English king's servants drifted on from day to
day, timid, without policy, and without direction, the agents of
France, well trained, energetic, and determined, knew their own minds
and gradually brought about the end which they had clearly set before
themselves. In vain did bitter complaints arise of the aggressions of
the officers of Philip. It was to no purpose that conferences were
held, protocols drawn up, and much time and ink wasted in discussing
trivialities. Neither Edward nor Philip wished to push matters to
extremities. To the former the policy of drift was always congenial.
The latter was content to wait until the pear was ripe. It seemed that
in a few more years Gascony would become as thoroughly subject to the
French crown as Champagne or Normandy.
Philip the Fair died in 1314, and was followed in rapid succession by
his three sons. The first of these, Louis X., had, like Edward II., to
contend against an aristocratic reaction, and died in 1316, before he
could even receive the homage of his brother-in-law. A king of more
energy than Edward might have profited by the difficult situation which
followed Louis' death. For a time there was neither pope, nor emperor,
nor King of France. But Philip V. mounted the French throne when his
brother's widow had given birth to a daughter, and continued the policy
of his predecessors with regard to Gascony. Again the disputes between
Norman and Gascon sailors threatened, as in 1293, to bring about a
rupture. The ever-increasing aggressions of the suzerain culminated in
summoning Edward's own seneschal of Saintonge to appear before the
French king's court. Edward neglected to do homage, alleging his
preoccupation in the Scottish war and similar excuses. But the
threatened danger soon passed away, for again the interests and fears
of both parties postponed the conflict. In avoiding any alliance with
the Scots, the French king showed a self-restraint for which Edward
could not but be grateful. In 1320 Edward performed in person his
long-delayed homage at Amiens, though his grievances against his
brother-in-law still remained unredressed. In 1322 the death of Philip
V. renewed the troublesome homage question in a more acute form.[1]
[1] For the relations of Edward II. and Philip V. see Lehugeur,
_Hist. de Philippe le Long_, pp. 240-66 (1897).
The obligation of performing homage to a rival prince weighed with
increasing severity on the English kings at each rapid change of
occupants of the throne of France. The same pretexts were again brought
forward, as sufficient reasons for postponing or evading the unpleasant
duly. But before the question was settled a new source of trouble arose
in the affair of Saint-Sardos, which soon plunged the two countries into
open war. The lord of Montpezat, a vassal of the Duke of Gascony, built
a _bastide_ at Saint-Sardos upon a site which he declared was held by
himself of the duke, but which the French officials claimed as belonging
to Charles IV. The dispute was taken before the parliament of Paris,
which decided that the new town belonged to the King of France.
Thereupon a royal force promptly took possession of it. Irritated at
this high-handed action, the lord of Montpezat invoked the aid of
Edward's seneschal of Gascony, who attacked and destroyed the _bastide_
and massacred the French garrison.[1] The answer of Charles the Fair to
this aggression was decisive. Gascony was pronounced sequestrated and
Charles of Valois, the veteran uncle of the king, was ordered to enforce
the sentence at the head of an imposing army.
[1] See for this affair Bréquigny, _Mémoire sur les différends
entre la France et l'Angleterre sous Charles le Bel, in Mém. de
l'Acad. des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres_, xli. (1780), pp.
641-92. M. Déprez is about to publish a Chancery Roll of Edward
II. which includes all the official acts relating to it.
Thus, in the summer of 1324 England and France were once more at war.
But while England remonstrated and negotiated, France acted. Norman
corsairs swept the Channel and pillaged the English coasts. Ponthieu
yielded without resistance. Early in August, Charles of Valois entered
the Agenais, and on the 15th Agen opened its gates. The victorious
French soon appeared before La Réole, where alone they encountered real
resistance. Edmund, Earl of Kent, who had made vain attempts to procure
peace at Paris, had been sent in July to act as lieutenant of
Aquitaine. He had not sufficient force at his command to venture to
meet the Count of Valois in the open field, and threw himself into La
Réole. The rocky height, crowned with a triple wall, and looking down
on the vineyards and cornfields of the Garonne, defied for weeks the
skill of the eminent Lorrainer engineers who directed Charles of
Valois' siege train. But when Charles announced to Edmund that he would
carry the town by assault, if not surrendered within four days, the
timid earl signed a truce from September to Easter, and was allowed to
withdraw to Bordeaux. A mere fringe of coast-land still remained
faithful to the English duke, when Charles of Valois went back to
Paris, having victoriously terminated his long and chequered career.
Before the end of 1325 he died.[1]
[1] Petit, _Charles de Valois_, pp. 207-15 (1900), gives the
fullest modern account of these transactions.
The truce involved a renewal of the negotiations. Bishop Stratford and
William Ayermine, the astute chancery clerk, were commissioned in
November, 1324, to treat with the French, but made little progress in
their delicate task. At this stage Isabella, inspired probably by Adam
Orleton, came forward with a proposal. She besought her husband to
allow her to visit her brother, the French king, and use her influence
with him to procure peace and the restitution of Gascony. With the
strange infatuation which marked all the acts of Edward and his
favourites, Isabella's proposal was adopted, and in March, 1325, the
queen crossed the Channel and made her way to her brother's court. The
summer was consumed in negotiating a treaty, by which Edward's French
fiefs were to be restored to him in their integrity, as soon as he had
performed homage to the new king. Meanwhile the English garrison of
Gascony was to withdraw to Bayonne, leaving the rest of the duchy in
the hands of a French seneschal. Edward agreed to these terms, and put
Gascony into Charles's hands. He was still unwilling to compromise his
dignity by performing homage, while the Despensers were mortally afraid
of his going to France, lest it should remove him from their influence.
Isabella then made a second suggestion. She persuaded her brother to
excuse the personal homage of her husband, if Edward would invest his
young son, Edward, with Gascony and Ponthieu, and send him in his stead
to tender his feudal duly. This also was agreed to by the English king,
and in September the young prince, then about thirteen years old, was
appointed Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Ponthieu, and despatched to
join his mother at Paris, where he performed homage to his uncle.
It was expected that Gascony and Ponthieu would then be restored, and
that the queen and her son would return to England. But Charles IV.
perpetrated a clever piece of trickery which showed how far off a real
settlement still was. He "restored" to Edward those parts of Gascony
which had been peacefully surrendered to him in the summer, and
announced that he should keep the Agenais and La Réole, as belonging to
France by right of Charles of Valois' recent conquest. Bitterly
mortified at this treachery, Edward took upon himself the title of
"governor and administrator of his firstborn, Edward, Duke of
Aquitaine, and of his estates". By this technical subtlety, he thought
himself entitled to resume the control of the ceded districts and
resist the attack which was bound to follow hard upon the new breach.
Once more Charles IV. pronounced the sequestration of the duchy, and
despite Edward's efforts, his power crumbled away before the peaceful
advent of the French troops, charged with the execution of their
master's edict.
Long before the last Gascon castles had opened their gates to Charles's
officers, new developments at Paris made the question of Aquitaine a
subordinate matter. Despite the breach of the negotiations, Isabella
and her son still tarried at the French court. In answer to Edward's
requests for their return, she sent back excuse after excuse, till his
patience was fairly exhausted. At last, on December 1, 1325, Edward
peremptorily ordered his wife to return home, and warned her not to
consort with certain English traitors in the French court. The Duke of
Aquitaine was similarly exhorted to return, with his mother if he
could, but if not, without her. The reference to English traitors shows
that Edward was aware that Isabella had already formed that close
relation with the exiled lord of Wigmore which soon ripened into an
adulterous connexion. Inspired by Roger Mortimer, Isabella declared
that she was in peril of her life from the malice of the Despensers,
and would never go back to her husband as long as the favourites
retained power. A band of the exiles of 1322 gathered round her and her
paramour, and sought to bring about their restoration as champions of
the loudly expressed grievances of the queen, and the rights of her
young son. The king's ambassadors at Paris, Stratford and Ayermine,
recently made Bishop of Norwich by a papal provision which ignored the
election of Robert Baldock the chancellor, united themselves with the
queen and the fugitive marcher. With them, too, was associated Edmund
of Kent, who was allowed by the treaty to return from Gascony through
France. Bishop Stapledon, who had accompanied the queen to France, was
so alarmed at the turn events were taking, that he fled in disguise to
reveal his suspicions to the king. Thus England, already exposed to a
danger of a French war, was threatened with the forcible overthrow of
the Despensers and the reinstatement of Isabella by armed invaders.
By the spring of 1326 the scandalous relations of Isabella and Mortimer
were notorious all over England and France. Charles IV. grew disgusted
at his sister's doings, and gave no countenance to her schemes.
Isabella accordingly withdrew from Paris with her son and her paramour,
and made her way to the Netherlands. There she found refuge in the
county of Hainault, whose lord, William II, of Avesnes, was won over to
support her by a contract to marry the Duke of Aquitaine to his
daughter Philippa. A large advance from Philippa's marriage portion was
employed in hiring a troop of knights and squires of Hainault and
Holland. John of Hainault, brother of the count, took joint command of
this band with Roger Mortimer. The ports of Holland and Zealand, both
of which counties were united with Hainault under William II.'s rule,
offered ample facilities for their embarkation.
On September 23, 1326, the queen and her followers took ship at
Dordrecht in Holland. Next day the fleet cast anchor in the port of
Orwell, and that same day the expedition was landed and marched to
Walton, where it spent the first night on English soil. The gentry of
Suffolk and Essex flocked to the standard of the queen, who declared
that she had come to avenge the wrongs of Earl Thomas of Lancaster and
to drive the Despensers from power. Thomas of Brotherton, the earl
marshal, made common cause with the invaders, and Henry, Earl of
Leicester, hastened to associate himself with the champions of his
martyred brother. A great force of native Englishmen swelled the
queen's host, and reduced to insignificance the little band of
Hainaulters and Hollanders. There was no resistance. Isabella marched
to Bury St. Edmunds, "as if on a pilgrimage," and thence to Cambridge,
where she tarried several days with the canons of Barnwell. From
Cambridge she moved on to Baldock, where she despoiled the chancellor's
manors and took his brother captive. At Dunstable, her next halt, she
was on a great highway, within thirty-three miles of London.
On hearing of his wife's landing, Edward threw himself on the
compassion of the Londoners, but met with so cold a reception that
early in October he withdrew to Gloucester. Besides the chancellor and
the two Despensers, the only magnates of mark who remained faithful to
him were the brothers-in-law, Edmund, Earl of Arundel, and Earl
Warenne. On Edward's retreat from London, Bishop Stratford made his way
to the capital, where he joined with Archbishop Reynolds in a hollow
pretence of mediation. The Londoners gladly welcomed the queen's
messengers and soon rose in revolt in her favour. They plundered and
burnt the house of the Bishop of Exeter, who fled in alarm to St.
Paul's. Seized at the very door of the church, Stapledon was brutally
murdered by the mob in Cheapside, where his naked body lay exposed all
day. Immediately after this, Reynolds fled in terror to his Kentish
estates, where he waited to see which was the stronger side. The king's
younger son, John of Eltham, a boy of nine, who had been left behind by
his father in the Tower, was proclaimed warden of the capital.
On hearing of Edward's flight to the west, Isabella went after him in
pursuit. On the day of Stapledon's murder, she had advanced as far as
Wallingford, where, posing as the continuer of the policy of the lords
ordainers, she issued a proclamation denouncing the Despensers. Thence
she made her way to Oxford, where Bishop Orleton, who had already
joined her, preached a seditious sermon before the university and the
leaders of the revolt. Taking as his text, "My head, my head," he
demonstrated that the sick head of the state could not be restored by
all the remedies of Hippocrates, and would therefore have to be cut
off. This was the first intimation that the insurgents would not be
content with the fall of the Despensers. From Oxford, Isabella and
Mortimer hurried to Gloucester, whence Edward had already fled to the
younger Despenser's palatinate of Glamorgan. From Gloucester, they
passed on through Berkeley to Bristol, where the elder Despenser, the
Earl of Winchester, was in command. The feeling of the burgesses of the
second town in England was so strongly adverse that the earl was unable
to defend either the borough or the castle. In despair he opened the
gates on October 26 to the queen, and was immediately consigned,
without trial or inquiry, to the death of a traitor. After proclaiming
the Duke of Aquitaine as warden of the realm during his father's
absence, the queen's army marched on Hereford, where Isabella remained,
while the Earl of Leicester, accompanied by a Welsh clerk, named Rhys
ap Howel, was sent, with part of the army to hunt out the king.
After his flight from Gloucester, Edward had wandered through the Welsh
march to Chepstow, whence he took ship, hoping to make sail to Lundy,
which Despenser had latterly acquired, and perhaps ultimately to
Ireland. But contrary winds kept him in the narrows of the Bristol
Channel, and on October 27 he landed again at Cardiff. A few days later
he was at Caerphilly, but afraid to entrust himself to the protection
of the mightiest of marcher castles, he moved restlessly from place to
place in Glamorgan and Gower, imploring the help of the tenants of the
Despensers, and issuing vain summonses and commissions that no one
obeyed. Discovered by the local knowledge of Rhys ap Howel, or betrayed
by those whom the Welshman's gold had corrupted, Edward was captured on
November 16 in Neath abbey. With him Baldock and the younger Despenser
were also taken. On November 20 the favourite was put to death at
Hereford, while Baldock, saved from immediate execution by his clerkly
privilege, was consigned to the cruel custody of Orleton, only to
perish a few months later of ill-treatment. To Hereford also was
brought Edmund of Arundel, captured in Shropshire, and condemned to
suffer the fate of the Despensers. The king was entrusted to the
custody of Henry of Leicester, who conveyed him to his castle of
Kenilworth, where the unfortunate monarch passed the winter, "treated
not otherwise than a captive king ought to be treated".
It only remained to complete the revolution by making provision for the
future government of England. With this object a parliament was
summoned, at first by the Duke of Aquitaine in his father's name, and
afterwards more regularly by writs issued under the great seal. It met
on January 7, 1327, at Westminster, and, after the York precedent of
1322, contained representatives of Wales as well as of the three
estates of England. Orleton, the spokesman of Mortimer, asked the
estates whether they would have Edward II. or his son as their ruler.
The London mob loudly declared for the Duke of Aquitaine, and none of
the members of parliament ventured to raise a voice in favour of the
unhappy king, save four prelates of whom the most important was the
steadfast Archbishop Melton. The southern primate, deserting his old
master, declared that the voice of the people was the voice of God.
Stratford drew up six articles, in which he set forth that Edward of
Carnarvon was incompetent to govern, led by evil counsellors, a
despiser of the wholesome advice of the "great and wise men of the
realm," neglectful of business, and addicted to unprofitable pleasures;
that by his lack of good government he had lost Scotland, Ireland, and
Gascony; that he had injured Holy Church, and had done to death or
driven into exile many great men; that he had broken his coronation
oath, and that it was hopeless to expect amendment from him.
Even the agents of Mortimer shrunk from the odium of decreeing Edward's
deposition, and the more prudent course was preferred of inducing the
king to resign his power into his son's hands. An effort to persuade
the captive monarch to abdicate before his estates, was defeated by his
resolute refusal. Thereupon a committee of bishops, barons, and judges
was sent to Kenilworth to receive his renunciation in the name of
parliament. On January 20, Edward, clothed in black, admitted the
delegates to his presence. Utterly unmanned by misfortune, the king
fell in a deep swoon at the feet of his enemies. Leicester and
Stratford raised him from the ground, and, on his recovery, Orleton
exhorted him to resign his throne to his son, lest the estates,
irritated by his contumacy, should choose as their king some one who
was not of the royal line. Edward replied that he was sorry that his
people were tired of his rule, but that being so, he was prepared to
yield to their wishes, and make way for the Duke of Aquitaine. On this,
Sir William Trussell, as proctor of the three estates, formally
renounced their homage and fealty, and Sir Thomas Blount, steward of
the household, broke his staff of office, and announced that the royal
establishment was disbanded. Thus the calamitous reign of Edward of
Carnarvon came to a wretched end. His utter inefficiency as a king
makes it impossible to lament his fate. Yet few revolutions have ever
been conducted with more manifest self-seeking than that which hurled
Edward from power. The angry spite of the adulterous queen, the fierce
vengeance and greed of Roger Mortimer, the craft and cruelty of
Orleton, the time-serving cowardice of Reynolds, the stupidity of Kent
and Norfolk, the party spirit of Stratford and Ayermine, can inspire
nothing but disgust. Among the foes of Edward, Henry of Leicester alone
behaved as an honourable gentleman, anxious to vindicate a policy, but
careful to subordinate his private wrongs to public objects. Though his
name and wrongs were ostentatiously put forward by the dominant
faction, it is clear from the beginning that he was only a tool in its
hands, and that the reversal of the sentence of Earl Thomas was but the
pretext by which the schemers and traitors sought to capture the
government for their own selfish ends.
The resignation of the king was promptly reported to parliament. On
January 24 the Duke of Aquitaine was proclaimed Edward III., and from
the next day his regnal years were reckoned as beginning. Henry of
Leicester dubbed him knight, and on January 20 he was crowned in
Westminster Abbey. A few days later the young king met his parliament.
A standing council was appointed to carry on the administration during
his nonage. Of this body the Earl of Leicester acted as chief, though
most of his colleagues were partisans of Mortimer and the queen.
Orleton, who was made treasurer, continued to pull the wires as the
confidential agent of Isabella and Mortimer. A show of devotion to the
good old cause was thought politic, and therefore the sentences of 1322
were revoked, so that Earl Henry, restored to all his brother's
estates, was henceforth styled Earl of Lancaster. The commons went
beyond this in petitioning for the canonisation of Earl Thomas and
Archbishop Winchelsea. The revolution was consummated by a new
confirmation of the charters.
Even in the first flush of victory, Isabella and Mortimer were too
insecure and too bitter to allow Edward of Carnarvon to remain quietly
in prison under the custody of the Earl of Lancaster. As long as he was
alive, he might always become the possible instrument of their
degradation. At Orleton's instigation the deposed king was transferred
in April from his cousin's care to that of two knights, Thomas Gurney
and John Maltravers. He was promptly removed from Kenilworth and
hurried by night from castle to castle until, after some sojourn at
Corfe, he was at last immured at Berkeley. Every indignity was put upon
him, and the systematic course of ill-treatment, to which he was
subjected, was clearly intended to bring about his speedy death. But
the robust constitution of the athlete rose superior to the
persecutions of his torturers, and to save further trouble he was
barbarously murdered in his bed on the night of September 21. Piercing
shrieks from the interior of the castle told the peasantry that some
dire deed was being perpetrated within its gloomy walls. Next day it
was announced that the lord Edward had died a natural death, and his
corpse was exposed to the public view that suspicion might be averted.
He was buried with the state that became a crowned king in the
Benedictine Abbey Church of St. Peter, Gloucester. A few years later
the piety or remorse of Edward III. erected over his father's remains
the magnificent tomb which still challenges our admiration by the
delicacy of its tabernacle work and the artistic beauty of the
sculptured effigy of the murdered monarch.
The tragedy of Edward's end soon caused his misdeeds to be forgotten,
and ere long the countryside flocked on pilgrimage to his tomb, as to
the shrine of a saint. By a curious irony the burial place of Edward of
Carnarvon rivalled in popularity the chapel on the hill at Pontefract
where Thomas of Lancaster had perished by Edward's orders. Like his
cousin, Edward became a popular, though not a canonised, saint. From
the offerings made at his tomb the monks of Gloucester were in time
supplied with the funds that enabled them to recast their romanesque
choir in the newer "perpendicular" fashion of architecture, and
embellish their church with all the rich additions which contrast so
strangely with the grim impressiveness of the stately Norman nave.
There was only one impediment to the people's worship of the dead king.
The secrecy which enveloped his end led to rumours that he was still
alive, and the prevalence of these reports soon proved almost as great
a source of embarrassment to his supplanters, as his living presence
had been in the first months of their unhallowed power.
It was not easy for Isabella and Mortimer to restore the waning
fortunes of England at home and abroad. We shall see that it was only
by an almost complete surrender that they procured peace with France
and a partial restoration of Gascony. In Scotland they were even less
fortunate. Robert Bruce, though broken in health and spirits, took up
an aggressive attitude, and it was found necessary to summon the feudal
levies to meet on the border in the summer of 1327 in order to repel
his attack. While the troops were mustering at York, a fierce fight
broke out in the streets, between the Hainault mercenaries, under John
of Hainault, and the citizens. So threatening was the outlook that it
was thought wise to send the Hainaulters back home. From this accident
it happened that the young king went forth to his first campaign,
attended only by his native-born subjects. The Scots began operations
by breaking the truce and overrunning the borders. The campaign
directed against them was as futile as any of the last reign, and the
English, though three times more numerous than the enemy, dared not
provoke battle. This inglorious failure may well have convinced
Mortimer that the best chance of maintaining his power was to make
peace at any price. Early in 1328, the negotiations for a treaty were
concluded at York. During their progress, Edward, who was at York to
meet his parliament, was married to Philippa of Hainault.
The Scots treaty was confirmed in April by a parliament that met at
Northampton. All claim to feudal superiority over Scotland was
withdrawn; Robert Bruce was recognised as King of Scots, and his young
son David was married to Joan of the Tower, Edward III.'s infant
sister. This surrender provoked the liveliest indignation, and men
called the treaty of Northampton the "shameful peace," and ascribed it
to the treachery or timorousness of the queen and her paramour. But it
is hard to see what other solution of the Scottish problem was
practicable. For many years Bruce had been _de facto_ King of Scots,
and any longer hesitation to withhold the recognition which he coveted
would have been sure to involve the north of England in the same
desolation as that which he had inflicted before the truce of 1322. But
the founder of Scottish independence was drawing near to the end of his
career. His health had long been undermined by a terrible disease which
the chroniclers thought to be leprosy. He died in 1329, and on his
death-bed he bethought him of how he, who had shed so much Christian
blood, had never been able to fulfil his vow of crusade. Accordingly he
entreated James Douglas, his faithful companion-in-arms, to go on
crusade against the Moors of Granada, taking with him the heart of his
dead master. Douglas fulfilled the request, and perished in Spain,
whither he had carried the heart of the Scottish liberator. With the
accession of the little David Bruce, new troubles began for Scotland,
though danger from England was for the moment averted by the English
marriage and the treaty of Northampton.
The ill-will produced by the "shameful peace" spread far and wide the
profound dislike for Mortimer which pity for the fate of Edward had
first aroused in the breasts of Englishmen. The greedy marcher was at
no pains to make himself popular. Holding no great office of state, he
strove to rule through his creatures Orleton, the treasurer, and the
hardly less subservient chancellor, Bishop Hotham of Ely, or through
lay partisans such as Sir Oliver Ingham and Sir Simon Bereford. But his
best chance of remaining in power was through the besotted infatuation
of the queen-mother, whose relations with him were not concealed from
the public eye by any elaborate parade of secrecy. He still posed as
the inheritor of the tradition of the lords ordainers, and never failed
to put as much of the responsibility of his rule as he could on Henry
of Lancaster and the old baronial leaders. But with all his force and
energy, he was too narrowly selfish and grasping to take much trouble
to frame an elaborate policy. As an administrator he was as incompetent
as either Thomas of Lancaster or the Despensers.
Mortimer's chief care was to add office to office, and estate to
estate, in order that he might establish his house as supreme over all
Wales and its march. Besides his own enormous inheritance, he ruled
over Ludlow and Meath in the right of his wife, Joan of Joinville, the
heiress of the Lacys. He had inherited Chirk and the other lands of his
uncle, the sometime justice of Wales, who had died in Edward II.'s
prison; and he procured for himself a grant of his uncle's old office
for life, so that, while as justice of Wales he lorded it over the
principality, as head of the Mortimers he could dominate the whole
march. To complete his ascendency in the march became his great
ambition. He obtained the custody of Glamorgan, the stronghold of his
sometime rival, Hugh Despenser the younger. To this were added Oswestry
and Clun, the Fitzalan march in western Shropshire, forfeited to the
crown by the faithfulness with which Edmund Fitzalan, the late Earl of
Arundel, had laid down his life for Edward II. Minor grants of lands,
offices, wardships, and pensions were constantly lavished upon him by
the complacency of his mistress. In Ireland he received complete
palatine franchises over Trim, Meath, and Louth, along with the custody
of the estates of the infant Earl of Kildare, the chief of the Leinster
Geraldines. He extended his connexions by marrying his seven daughters
to the heads of great families, and where possible to men of marcher
houses. He soon numbered among his sons-in-law the representatives of
the Charltons of Powys, the Hastingses of Abergavenny, now the chief
heirs of Aymer of Pembroke, the Audleys of the Shropshire march, the
Beauchamps of Warwick, the Berkeleys, the Grandisons, and the Braoses.
Anxious to extend his dignity as well as his power, he procured his
nomination as Earl of the March of Wales, "a title," says a chronicler,
"hitherto unheard of in England". As earl of the march and justice of
the principality, he ruled the lands west of the Severn with little
less than regal sway. His banquets, his tournaments, his pious
foundations even, dazzled all men by their splendour.
Mortimer was created Earl of March in the parliament held in October,
1328, at Salisbury, where John of Eltham was made Earl of Cornwall and
James, Butler of Ireland, Earl of Ormonde. His assumption of this new
title at last roused the sluggish indignation of Earl Henry of
Lancaster, who felt that his own marcher interests were compromised,
and bitterly resented the vain use made of his name, while he was
carefully kept without any control of policy. He refused to attend the
Salisbury parliament, though he and his partisans mustered in arms in
the neighbourhood of that city. Civil war seemed imminent, and
Mortimer's Welshmen devastated Lancaster's earldom of Leicester, but
Archbishop Meopham (who had lately succeeded Reynolds in the primacy)
managed to patch up peace. Not long afterwards Lancaster was smitten
with blindness, and was thenceforth unable to take an active part in
public affairs. Mortimer again triumphed for the moment, and, with
cruel malice, excepted Lancaster's confidential agents from the pardon
which he was forced to extend to the earl. His success over Lancaster
was materially facilitated by the weakness of Edmund, Earl of Kent,
who, after joining with Earl Henry in his refusal to attend the
Salisbury parliament, deserted him at the moment of the capture of
Leicester by the Earl of March. But his treachery did not save him from
Mortimer's revenge. In conjunction with the queen, Mortimer plotted to
lure on Earl Edmund to ruin. Their agents persuaded him that Edward II.
was still alive and imprisoned in Corfe castle, and urged him to
restore his brother to liberty. The earl rose to the bait, and agreed
to be party to an insurrection which was to restore Edward of Carnarvon
to freedom, if not to his throne. When Kent was involved in the meshes,
he was suddenly arrested in the Winchester parliament of March, 1330,
and accused of treason. Convicted by his own speeches and letters, he
was adjudged to death by the lords, and on March 19 beheaded outside
the walls of the city.
The fall of Kent convinced Lancaster that his fate would not be long
delayed, and that his best chance of saving himself and his cause lay
in stirring up the king to energetic action against the Earl of March.
The death of his uncle irritated Edward, who at seventeen was old
enough to feel the degrading nature of his thraldom, and was eager to
govern the kingdom of which he was the nominal head. In June, 1330, the
birth of a son, the future Black Prince, to Edward and Philippa seems
to have impressed on the young monarch that he had come to man's
estate. Lancaster accordingly found him eager to shake off the yoke of
his mother's paramour. The opportunity came in October, 1330, when the
magnates assembled at Nottingham to hold a parliament there. Isabella
and Mortimer took up their abode in the castle, where Edward also
resided. Suspicions were abroad, and the castle was closely guarded by
Mortimer's Welsh followers. Sir William Montague, a close friend of
Edward's, was chosen to strike the blow, and lay outside with a band of
troops. Some rumour of the plot seems to have leaked out, and on
October 19 Mortimer angrily denounced Montague as a traitor, and
accused the king of complicity with his designs. But Montague was safe
outside the castle, and, when evening fell, all that Mortimer could do
was to lock the gates and watch the walls. William Eland, constable of
the castle, had been induced to join the conspiracy, and had revealed
to Montague a secret entrance into the stronghold. On that very night,
Montague and his men-at-arms effected an entrance through an
underground passage into the castle-yard, where Edward joined them.
They then made their way up to Mortimer's chamber, which as usual was
next to that of the queen. Two knights, who guarded the door, were
struck down, and the armed band burst into the room. After a desperate
scuffle, the Earl of March was secured. Hearing the noise, the queen
rushed into the room, and though Edward still waited without, cried,
with seeming consciousness of his share in the matter, "Fair son, have
pity on the gentle Mortimer". Her entreaties were unavailing, and the
fallen favourite was hurried, under strict custody, to London.
Edward then issued a proclamation announcing that he had taken the
government of England into his own hands. Parliament, prorogued to
Westminster, met on November 26, and its chief business was the trial
of Mortimer before the lords. He was charged with accroaching to
himself the royal power, stirring up dissension between Edward II and
the queen, teaching Edward III. to regard the Earl of Lancaster as his
enemy, deluding Edmund of Kent into believing that his brother was
alive and with procuring his execution, accepting bribes from the Scots
for concluding the disgraceful peace, and with perpetrating grievous
cruelties in Ireland. The lords, imitating the evil precedents set
during Mortimer's time of power, condemned him without trial or chance
of answer to the accusations made against him. On November 29 the
fallen earl was paraded through London from his prison in the Tower to
Tyburn Elms, and was there hanged on the common gallows. His vast
estates were forfeited to the crown. His accomplice, Sir Simon
Bereford, suffered the same fate; but Sir Oliver Ingham, another of his
associates, was pardoned. Edward discreetly drew a veil over his
mother's shame. Mortimer's notorious relations with her were not
enumerated in the accusations brought against him, and Isabella, though
removed from power and stripped of some of her recent acquisitions, was
allowed to live in honourable retirement on her dower manors.
Scrupulously visited by her dutiful son, she wandered freely from house
to house, as she felt disposed. She died in 1358 at her castle of
Hertford, in the habit of the Poor Clares--a sister order of the
Franciscans. The later tradition that she was kept in confinement at
Castle Rising has only this slender foundation in fact that Castle
Rising was one of her favourite places of abode. With her withdrawal
from public life Edward III.'s real reign begins.