The annals of the early years of Edward II. are mainly filled by
contemporary chroniclers with details of the miserable strife between
the king and his barons on the question of Gaveston's unconstitutional
position. But the really important feature of the time was the gradual
reconquest of Scotland by Robert Bruce, during the continuance of the
domestic strife in England. Edward I. had laid such a firm grip on the
northern realm that it required many years to undo his work. A very
large proportion of the Scottish nobility regarded Bruce as a usurper
who had opened his career with murder and sacrilege, and either openly
opposed him or denied him help. His resources were small, and it was
only by constant effort, often chequered by failures, that he gradually
fought down his local adversaries, and reduced the English garrisons one
by one. Dumbarton and Linlithgow were only mastered in 1312. Perth did
not finally fall into his hands till 1313; Edinburgh, Roxburgh and
Stirling were still holding out in 1314. During all this time the
English king only once went north of the Border--in 1311--and then with
a very small army, for Lancaster and his friends had refused to join his
banner. Yet even under such conditions Bruce had to retire to the
mountains, and to allow the invaders to range unopposed through Lothian
and Fife, and even beyond the Tay. With ordinary capacity and
perseverance Edward II. might have mastered his enemy; indeed the Comyns
and Umfravilles and other loyalist barons of Scotland would have carried
out the business for him, if only he had given them adequate support.
But he spent what small energy he possessed in a wretched strife of
chicanery and broken promises with Thomas of Lancaster and his party,
dismissing and recalling Gaveston according to the exigencies of the
moment, while he let the Scottish war shift for itself. It must be
confessed that the conduct of his adversaries was almost as contemptible
and unpatriotic. They refused to aid in the war, as if it was the
king's private affair and not that of the nation. And repeatedly, when
they had Edward at their mercy and might have dictated what terms they
pleased to him, they failed to rise to the situation. This was
especially the case in 1311, when the king had completely submitted in
face of their armed demonstrations. Instead of introducing any general
scheme of reform they contented themselves with putting him under the
tutelage of twenty-one "lords ordainers," a baronial committee like that
which had been appointed by the Provisions of Oxford, fifty years back.
Edward was not to levy an army, appoint an official, raise a tax, or
quit the realm without their leave. He had also to swear an obedience to
a long string of constitutional limitations of his power, and to promise
to remove many practical grievances of administration. But there were
two great faults in the proceedings of Thomas of Lancaster and his
friends. The first was that they ignored the rights of the commons--save
indeed that they got their ordinances confirmed by parliament--and put
all power into the hands of a council which represented nothing but the
baronial interest. The second, and more fatal, was that this council of
"ordainers," when installed in office, showed energy in nothing save in
persecuting the friends of Edward and Gaveston; it neglected the general
welfare of the realm, and in particular made no effort whatever to end
the Scottish war. It was clearly their duty either to make peace with
Robert Bruce, or to exert themselves to crush him; but they would do
neither.
Battle of Bannockburn.
Gaveston's unhappy career came to an end in 1312. After he had been
twice exiled, and had been twice recalled by the king, he was besieged
in Scarborough and captured by the earl of Pembroke. He was being
conducted to London to be tried in parliament, when his two greatest
enemies, Thomas of Lancaster and Guy, earl of Warwick, took him out of
the hands of his escort, and beheaded him by the wayside without any
legal authority or justification. The unhappy king was compelled to
promise to forget and forgive this offence, and was then restored to a
certain amount of freedom and power; the barons believed that when freed
from the influence of Gaveston he would prove a less unsatisfactory
sovereign. The experiment did not turn out happily. Bruce having at last
made an almost complete end of the English garrisons within his realm,
laid siege to Stirling, the last and strongest of them all, in the
spring of 1313. Compelled by the pressure of public opinion to attempt
its relief, Edward crossed the border in June 1314, with an army of
20,000 foot and 4000 men-at-arms. He found Bruce prepared to dispute his
advance on the hillside of Bannockburn, 2 m. in front of Stirling, in a
strong position with a stream in front and his flanks covered by rows of
pitfalls, dug to discomfit the English cavalry. The Scots, as at
Falkirk, were ranged in solid clumps of pikemen above the burn, with
only a small reserve of horse. The English king, forgetting his father's
experiences, endeavoured to ride down the enemy by headlong frontal
charges of his men-at-arms, and made practically no attempt to use his
archery to advantage. After several attacks had been beaten off with
heavy loss, the English host recoiled in disorder and broke up--the
king, who had kept in the rear all day, was one of the first to move
off. The flower of his knights had fallen, including his nephew, the
earl of Gloucester, who was the only one of the great magnates of the
realm who had shown loyalty to him during the last six years. The Scots
also made many prisoners; the disaster was complete, and the wrecks of
the beaten army dispersed before reaching the border. Bruce followed
them up, and spent the autumn in ravaging Northumberland and Cumberland.
Thomas, earl of Lancaster.
Thomas of Lancaster, who had refused to join in the late campaign, took
advantage of its results to place the king once more in complete
tutelage. His household was dismissed, he was bidden to live as best he
could on an allowance of L10 a day, and all his ministers and officials
were changed. For more than three years Lancaster practically reigned in
his cousin's name; it was soon found that the realm got no profit
thereby, for Earl Thomas, though neither so apathetic nor so frivolous
as Edward, was not a whit more competent to conduct either war or
domestic administration. The Scots swept everything before them,
ravaging the north at their will, and capturing Berwick. They even made
a great expedition to Ireland, where Bruce's brother Edward was
proclaimed king by the rebellious Celtic septs, and rode across the
whole island, exterminating the Anglo-Irish population in many districts
(1315-1317). But the colonists rallied, and cut to pieces a great Irish
army at Athenry (1316), while in the next year Roger Mortimer, a
hard-handed baron of the Welsh march, crossed with reinforcements and
drove back Edward Bruce into the north. Resuming his advance after a
space, the rebel king was routed and slain at Dundalk (Oct. 14, 1318)
and the insurrection died out. But it had had the permanent result of
weakening the king's grip on the north and west of Ireland, where the
Englishry had been almost exterminated. From this time forth until the
reign of Henry VIII. the limit of the country in full subjection to the
crown was always shrinking, and the Irish chiefs of the inland continued
to pay less and less attention to orders issued from Dublin or London.
Though the Scottish expedition to Ireland had been beaten off, this was
not in the least to be ascribed to the credit of Lancaster, who was
showing the grossest incompetence as an administrator. He could neither
protect the Border, nor even prevent private civil wars from breaking
out, not only on the Welsh marches (where they had always been common),
but even in the heart of England. The most extraordinary symptom of the
time was a civic revolt at Bristol (1316), where the townsfolk expelled
the royal judges, and actually stood a siege before they would submit.
Such revolts of great towns were normal in Germany or Italy, but almost
unknown on this side of the Channel. All this unrest might well be
ascribed to Lancaster's want of ability, but he had also to bear--with
less justice--the discontent caused by two years of famine and
pestilence. In August 1318 he was removed from power by a league formed
by Pembroke, Warenne, Arundel and others of the lords ordainers, who put
a new council in power, and showed themselves somewhat less hostile to
the king than Earl Thomas had been. Edward was allowed to raise an army
for the siege of Berwick, and was lying before its walls, when the
Scots, turning his flank, made a fierce foray into Yorkshire, and routed
the shire-levy under Archbishop Melton at the battle of Myton. This so
disheartened the king and the council that controlled him that they
concluded a two years truce with Robert of Scotland, thus for the first
time acknowledging him as a regular enemy and no mere rebel (1319).
The Despensers.
Execution of Lancaster.
The time of comparative quiet that followed was utilized by the king in
an attempt to win back some of his lost authority. For a short space
Edward showed more capacity and energy than he had ever been supposed to
possess. Probably this was due entirely to the fact that he had come
under the influence of two able men who had won his confidence and had
promised him revenge for the murdered Gaveston. These were the two Hugh
Despensers, father and son; the elder was an ambitious baron who hated
Lancaster, the younger had been made Edward's chamberlain in 1318 and
had become his secret councillor and constant companion. Finding that
the king was ready to back them in all their enterprises, the Despensers
resolved to take the fearful risk of snatching at supreme power by using
their master's name to oust the barons who were now directing affairs
from their position. The task was the more easy because Lancaster was at
open discord with the men who had supplanted him, so that the baronial
party was divided; while the mishaps of the last six years had convinced
the nation that other rulers could be as incompetent and as unlucky as
the king. Indeed, there was a decided reaction in Edward's favour, since
Lancaster and his friends had been tried and found wanting. Moreover,
the Despensers felt that they had a great advantage over Gaveston in
that they were native-born barons of ancient ancestry and good estate:
the younger Hugh, indeed, through his marriage with the sister of the
earl of Gloucester who fell at Bannockburn, was one of the greatest
landowners on the Welsh border: they could not be styled upstarts or
adventurers. Edward's growing confidence in the Despensers at last
provoked the notice and jealousy of the dominant party. The barons
brought up many armed retainers to the parliament of 1321, and forced
the king to dismiss and to condemn them to exile. But their discomfiture
was only to last a few months; in the following October a wanton outrage
and assault on the person and retinue of Edward's queen, Isabella of
France, by the retainers of Lord Badlesmere, one of Pembroke's
associates, provoked universal reprobation. The king made it an excuse
for gathering an army to besiege Badlesmere's castle at Leeds; he took
it and hanged the garrison. He then declared the Despensers pardoned,
and invited them to return to England. On this Thomas of Lancaster and
the more resolute of his associates took arms, but the majority both of
the baronage and of the commons remained quiescent, public opinion being
rather with than against the king. The rebels displayed great
indecision, and Lancaster proved such a bad general that he was finally
driven into the north and beaten at the battle of Boroughbridge (March
16, 1322), where his chief associate, the earl of Hereford, was slain.
Next day he surrendered, with the wreck of his host. But the king, who
showed himself unexpectedly vindictive, beheaded him at once; three
other peers, Badlesmere, Clifford and Mowbray, were subsequently
executed, with a score of knights.
Rebellion of Queen Isabella and Mortimer.
Such severity was most impolitic, and Lancaster was ere long hailed as a
saint and a martyr. But for the moment the king seemed triumphant; he
called a parliament which revoked the "ordinances" of 1311, and replaced
the Despensers in power. For the remaining four years of his reign they
were omnipotent; but able and unscrupulous as they were, they could not
solve the problem of successful governance. To their misfortune the
Scottish war once more recommenced, King Robert having refused to
continue the truce. The fortune of Edward II. now hung on the chance
that he might be able to maintain the struggle with success; he raised a
large army and invaded Lothian, but Bruce refused a pitched battle, and
drove him off with loss by devastating the countryside around him.
Thereupon Edward, to the deep humiliation of the people, sued for
another cessation of hostilities, and obtained it by conceding all that
Robert asked, save the formal acknowledgment of his kingly title. But
peace did not suffice to end Edward's troubles; he dropped back into his
usual apathy, and the Despensers showed themselves so harsh and greedy
that the general indignation only required a new leader in order to take
once more the form of open insurrection. The end came in an unexpected
fashion. Edward had quarrelled with his wife Isabella, who complained
that he made her the "handmaid of the Despensers," and excluded her from
her proper place and honour. Yet in 1325 he was unwise enough to send
her over to France on an embassy to her brother Charles IV., and to
allow his eldest son Edward, prince of Wales, to follow her to Paris.
Having the boy in her power, and being surrounded by the exiles of
Lancaster's faction, she set herself to plot against her husband, and
opened up communications with the discontented in England. It was in
vain that Edward besought her to return and to restore him his son; she
came back at last, but at the head of an army commanded by Roger, Lord
Mortimer, the most prominent survivor of the party of Earl Thomas, with
whom she had formed an adulterous connexion which they for some time
succeeded in keeping secret.
Deposition and murder of Edward II.
When she landed with her son in Essex in September 1326, she was at once
joined by Henry of Lancaster, the heir of Earl Thomas, and most of the
baronage of the eastern counties. Even the king's half-brother, the earl
of Norfolk, rallied to her banner. Edward and the Despensers, after
trying in vain to raise an army, fled into the west. They were all
caught by their pursuers; the two Despensers were executed--the one at
Bristol, the other at Hereford. Several more of Edward's scanty band of
friends--the earl of Arundel and the bishop of Exeter and others--were
also slain. Their unhappy master was forced to abdicate on the 20th of
January 1327, his fourteen-year old son being proclaimed king in his
stead. He was allowed to survive in close prison some eight months
longer, but when his robust constitution defied all attempts to kill him
by privations, he was murdered by the orders of the queen and Mortimer
at Berkeley Castle on the 21st of September.
Regency of Isabella and Mortimer.
The three years regency of Isabella, during the minority of Edward III.,
formed a disgraceful episode in the history of England. She was as much
the tool of Mortimer as her husband had been the tool of the Despensers,
and their relations became gradually evident to the whole nation. All
posts of dignity and emolument were kept for their personal adherents,
and a new and formidable dignity was conferred on Mortimer himself, when
he was made both justiciar of the principality of Wales, and also earl
of March, in which lay both his own broad lands and the estates of
Despenser and Arundel, which he had shamelessly appropriated. It is
surprising that the adulterous pair succeeded in maintaining themselves
in power for so long, since the ignominy of the situation was evident.
They were even able to quell the first attempt at a reaction, by seizing
and beheading Edmund, earl of Kent, the late king's half-brother, who
was betrayed while organizing a plot for their destruction. The one
politic act of Mortimer's administration, the conclusion of a permanent
peace with Scotland by acknowledging Bruce as king (1328), was not one
which made him more popular. The people called it "the shameful peace of
Northampton," and firmly believed that he had been bribed by the Scots.
Edward III.
Yet Isabella and her paramour held on to power for two years after the
peace, and were only overthrown by a blow from an unexpected quarter.
When the young king had reached the age of eighteen he began to
understand the disgraceful nature of his own situation. Having secured
promise of aid from Henry of Lancaster, his cousin, and other barons, he
executed a _coup de main_, and seized Mortimer in his chamber at
midnight. The queen was also put under guard till a parliament could be
called. It met, and at the king's demand passed sentence on the earl for
the murder of Edward II. and other crimes. He was hanged at Tyburn (Nov.
1330); the queen suffered nothing worse than complete exclusion from
power, and lived for more than twenty years in retirement on the manors
of her dowry.
Edward III., who thus commenced his reign ere he was out of his boyhood,
was, as might have been foretold from his prompt action against
Mortimer, a prince of great vigour and enterprise. He showed none of his
father's weakness and much of his grandfather's capacity. He fell short
of Edward I. in steadiness of character and organizing power, but
possessed all his military capacity and his love of work. Unfortunately
for England his ambition was to be the mirror of chivalry rather than a
model administrator. He took up and abandoned great enterprises with
equal levity; he was reckless in the spending of money; and in times of
trouble he was careless of constitutional precedent, and apt to push his
prerogative to extremes. Yet like Edward I. he was popular with his
subjects, who pardoned him much in consideration of his knightly
virtues, his courage, his ready courtesy and his love of adventure. In
most respects he was a perfect exponent of the ideals and foibles of his
age, and when he broke a promise or repudiated a debt he was but
displaying the less satisfactory side of the habitual morality of the
14th century the chivalry of which was often deficient in the less showy
virtues. With all his faults Edward during his prime was a capable and
vigorous ruler; and it was not without reason that not England only but
all western Europe looked up to him as the greatest king of his
generation.
Edward III. invades Scotland.
His early years were specially fortunate, as his rule contrasted in the
most favourable way with that of his infamous mother and his
contemptible father. The ministers whom he substituted for the creatures
of Mortimer were capable, if not talented administrators. He did much to
restore the internal peace of the realm, and put down the local
disorders which had been endemic for the last twenty years. Moreover,
when the war with Scotland recommenced he gave the English a taste of
victory such as they had not enjoyed since Falkirk. Robert Bruce was now
dead and his throne was occupied by the young David II., whose factious
nobles were occupied in civil strife when, in 1332, a pretender made a
snatch at the Scottish throne. This was Edward, the son of John Baliol,
an adventurous baron who collected all the "disinherited" Scots lords,
the members of the old English faction who had been expelled by Bruce,
and invaded the realm at their head. He beat the regent Mar at the
battle of Dupplin, seized Perth and Edinburgh, and crowned himself at
Scone. But knowing that his seat was precarious he did homage to the
English king, and made him all the promises that his father had given to
Edward I. The temptation was too great for the young king to refuse; he
accepted the homage, and offered the aid of his arms. It was soon
required, for Baliol was ere long expelled from Scotland. Edward won the
battle of Halidon Hill (July 19, 1333)--where he displayed considerable
tactical skill--captured Berwick, and reconquered a considerable portion
of Scotland for his vassal. Unfortunately for himself he made the
mistake of requiring too much from Baliol--forcing him to cede Lothian,
Tweeddale and the larger part of Galloway, and to promise a tribute.
These terms so irritated the Scots, who had shown signs of submission up
to this moment, that they refused to accept the pretender, and kept up a
long guerilla warfare which ended in his final expulsion. But the
fighting was all on Scottish ground, and Edward repeatedly made
incursions, showy if not effective, into the very heart of the northern
realm; on one occasion he reached Inverness unopposed. He held Perth
till 1339, Edinburgh till 1341, and was actually in possession of much
Scottish territory when his attention was called off from this minor war
to the greater question of the struggle with France. Meanwhile he had
acquired no small military reputation, had collected a large body of
professional soldiers whose experience was to be invaluable to him in
the continental war, and had taught his army the new tactics which were
to win Crecy and Poitiers. For the devices employed against the Scottish
"schiltrons" of pikemen at Dupplin and Halidon, were the same as those
which won all the great battles of the Hundred Years' War--the
combination of archery, not with cavalry (the old system of Hastings and
Falkirk), but with dismounted men-at-arms. The nation, meanwhile
prosperous, not vexed by overmuch taxation, and proud of its young king,
was ready and willing to follow him into any adventure that he might
indicate.