CHAPTER XIV.

[Illustration: 1_197_edward2.jpg EDWARD II.]

EDWARD II.

{1307.} The prepossessions entertained in favor of young Edward, kept

the English from being fully sensible of the extreme loss which they had

sustained by the death of the great monarch who filled the throne; and

all men hastened with alacrity to take the oath of allegiance to his son

and successor. This prince was in the twenty-third year of his age, was

of an agreeable figure, of a mild and gentle disposition, and having

never discovered a propensity to any dangerous vice, it was natural to

prognosticate tranquillity and happiness from his government. But the

first act of his reign blasted all these hopes, and showed him to be

totally unqualified for that perilous situation in which every

English monarch during those ages had, from the unstable form of the

constitution, and the turbulent dispositions of the people derived from

it, the misfortune to be placed. The indefatigable Robert Bruce, though

his army had been dispersed, and he himself had been obliged to take

shelter in the Western Isles, remained not long inactive; but before

the death of the late king, had sallied from his retreat, had again

collected his followers, had appeared in the field, and had obtained by

surprise an important advantage over Aymer de Valence, who commanded the

English forces.[*]

* Trivet, p. 346.

He was now become so considerable as to have afforded the king of

England sufficient glory in subduing him, without incurring any danger

of seeing all those mighty preparations, made by his father, fail in the

enterprise. But Edward, instead of pursuing his advantages, marched but

a little way into Scotland; and having an utter incapacity, and equal

aversion, for all application or serious business, he immediately

returned upon his footsteps, and disbanded his army. His grandees

perceived, from this conduct, that the authority of the crown, fallen

into such feeble hands, was no longer to be dreaded, and that every

insolence might be practised by them with impunity.

The next measure taken by Edward gave them an inclination to attack

those prerogatives which no longer kept them in awe. There was one Piers

Gavaston, son of a Gascon knight of some distinction, who had honorably

served the late king and who, in reward of his merits, had obtained an

establishment for his son in the family of the prince of Wales. This

young man soon insinuated himself into the affections of his master,

by his agreeable behavior, and by supplying him with all those

innocent though frivolous amusements which suited his capacity and

his inclinations. He was endowed with the utmost elegance of shape

and person, was noted for a fine mien and easy carriage, distinguished

himself in all warlike and genteel exercises, and was celebrated for

those quick sallies of wit in which his countrymen usually excel. By

all these accomplishments, he gained so entire an ascendant over young

Edward, whose heart was strongly disposed to friendship and confidence,

that the late king, apprehensive of the consequences, had banished him

the kingdom, and had, before he died, made his son promise never to

recall him. But no sooner did he find himself master, as he vainly

imagined, than he sent for Gavaston; and even before his arrival

at court, endowed him with the whole earldom of Cornwall, which had

escheated to the crown by the death of Edmond, son of Richard, king of

the Romans.[*] Not content with conferring on him those possessions,

which had sufficed as an appanage for a prince of the blood, he daily

loaded him with new honors and riches; married him to his own niece,

sister of the earl of Glocester; and seemed to enjoy no pleasure in his

royal dignity, but as it enabled him to exalt to the highest splendor

this object of his fond affections.

* Rymer, vol. iii. p. 1. Heming. vol. i. p. 243. Walsing, p.

96.

The haughty barons, offended at the superiority of a minion, whose

birth, though reputable, they despised as much inferior to their own,

concealed not their discontent; and soon found reasons to justify their

animosity in the character and conduct of the man they hated. Instead of

disarming envy by the moderation and modesty of his behavior, Gavaston

displayed his power and influence with the utmost ostentation; and

deemed no circumstance of his good fortune so agreeable as its enabling

him to eclipse and mortify all his rivals. He was vain-glorious,

profuse, rapacious; fond of exterior pomp and appearance, giddy with

prosperity; and as he imagined that his fortune was now as strongly

rooted in the kingdom as his ascendant was uncontrolled over the weak

monarch, he was negligent in engaging partisans, who might support his

sudden and ill-established grandeur. At all tournaments he took delight

in foiling the English nobility by his superior address: in every

conversation he made them the object of his wit and raillery: every day

his enemies multiplied upon him; and nought was wanting but a little

time to cement their union, and render it fatal both to him and to his

master.[*]

It behoved the king to take a journey to France, both in order to do

homage for the duchy of Guienne, and to espouse the Princess Isabella,

to whom he had long been affianced, though unexpected accidents had

hitherto retarded the completion of the marriage.[**] Edward left

Gavaston guardian of the realm,[***] with more ample powers than had

usually been conferred;[****] and, on his return with his young queen,

renewed all the proofs of that fond attachment to the favorite of which

every one so loudly complained. This princess was of an imperious and

intriguing spirit; and finding that her husband’s capacity required,

as his temper inclined, him to be governed, she thought herself best

entitled, on every account, to perform the office, and she contracted

a mortal hatred against the person who had disappointed her in these

expectations. She was well pleased, therefore, to see a combination of

the nobility forming against Gavaston, who, sensible of her hatred, had

wantonly provoked her by new insults and injuries.

* T. de la More, p. 593; Walsing. p. 97.

** T. de la More, p. 593. Trivet, Cont. p. 3.

*** Rymer vol. iii. p. 47. Ypod. Neust. p. 499.

**** Brady’s App. No. 49.

{1308.} Thomas, earl of Lancaster, cousin-german to the king, and first

prince of the blood, was by far the most opulent and powerful subject in

England, and possessed in his own right, and soon after in that of his

wife, heiress of the family of Lincoln, no less than six earldoms, with

a proportionable estate in land, attended with all the jurisdictions and

power which commonly in that age were annexed to landed property. He was

turbulent and factious in his disposition; mortally hated the favorite,

whose influence over the king exceeded his own; and he soon became the

head of that party among the barons who desired the depression of this

insolent stranger. The confederated nobles bound themselves by oath to

expel Gavaston: both sides began already to put themselves in a warlike

posture: the licentiousness of the age broke out in robberies and other

disorders, the usual prelude of civil war, and the royal authority,

despised in the king’s own hands, and hated in those of Gavaston, became

insufficient for the execution of the laws and the maintenance of peace

in the kingdom. A parliament being summoned at Westminster, Lancaster

and his party came thither with an armed retinue; and were there enabled

to impose their own terms on the sovereign. They required the banishment

of Gavaston, imposed an oath on him never to return, and engaged

the bishops, who never failed to interpose in all civil concerns,

to pronounce him excommunicated if he remained any longer in the

kingdom.[*] Edward was obliged to submit;[**] but even in his compliance

gave proofs of his fond attachment to his favorite. Instead of removing

all umbrage by sending him to his own country, as was expected, he

appointed him lord lieutenant of Ireland[***], attended him to Bristol

on his journey thither, and before his departure conferred on him new

lands and riches both in Gascony and England.[****] Gavaston, who did

not want bravery, and possessed talents for war,[*****] acted, during

his government, with vigor against some Irish rebels, whom he subdued.

* Trivet, Cont. p. 5.

** Rymer, vol. iii. p. 80.

*** Rymer, vol. iii. p. 92. Murimuth, p. 39.

**** Rymer, vol. iii. p. 87.

***** Heming. vol. i. p. 248. T. de la More, p. 593.

Meanwhile, the king, less shocked with the illegal violence which

had been imposed upon him, than unhappy in the absence of his minion,

employed every expedient to soften the opposition of the barons to

his return; as if success in that point were the chief object of his

government. The high office of hereditary steward was conferred on

Lancaster: his father-in-law, the earl of Lincoln, was bought off by

other concessions: Earl Warrenne was also mollified by civilities,

grants, or promises: the insolence of Gavaston, being no longer before

men’s eyes, was less the object of general indignation; and Edward,

deeming matters sufficiently prepared for his purpose, applied to the

court of Rome, and obtained for Gavaston a dispensation from that oath

which the barons had compelled him to take, that he would forever

abjure the realm.[*] He went down to Chester to receive him on his first

landing from Ireland; flew into his arms with transports of joy; and

having obtained the formal consent of the barons in parliament to his

reëstablishment, set no longer any bounds to his extravagant fondness

and affection. Gavaston himself, forgetting his past misfortunes, and

blind to their causes, resumed the same ostentation and insolence,

and became more than ever the object of general detestation among the

nobility.

The barons first discovered their animosity by absenting themselves from

parliament; and finding that this expedient had not been successful,

they began to think of employing sharper and more effectual remedies.

Though there had scarcely been any national ground of complaint,

except some dissipation of the public treasure: though all the acts of

mal-administration objected to the king and his favorite, seemed of a

nature more proper to excite heart-burnings in a ball or assembly, than

commotions in a great kingdom: yet such was the situation of the times,

that the barons were determined, and were able, to make them the reasons

of a total alteration in the constitution and civil government. Having

come to parliament, in defiance of the laws and the king’s prohibition,

with a numerous retinue of armed followers, they found themselves

entirely masters; and they presented a petition which was equivalent

to a command, requiring Edward to devolve on a chosen junto the whole

authority, both of the crown and of the parliament. The king was obliged

to sign a commission, empowering the prelates and barons to elect twelve

persons, who should, till the term of Michaelmas in the year following,

have authority to enact ordinances for the government of the kingdom,

and regulation of the king’s household; consenting that these ordinances

should, thenceforth and forever have the force of laws; allowing the

ordainers to form associations among themselves and their friends, for

their strict and regular observance; and all this for the greater glory

of God, the security of the church, and the honor and advantage of the

king and kingdom.[**]

* Rymer, vol. iii. p., 167.

** Brady’s App. No. 50. Heming. vol. i. p. 247., Walsing. p.

97.,Ryley, p. 526.

The barons, in return signed a declaration, in which they acknowledged

that they owed these concessions merely to the king’s free grace;

promised that this commission should never be drawn into precedent;

and engaged that the power of the ordainers should expire at the time

appointed.[*]

{1311.} The chosen junto accordingly framed their ordinances, and

presented them to the king and parliament, for their confirmation in the

ensuing year. Some of these ordinances were laudable, and tended to the

regular execution of justice; such as those requiring sheriffs to be

men of property, abolishing the practice of issuing privy seals for

the suspension of justice, restraining the practice of purveyance,

prohibiting the adulteration and alteration of the coin, excluding

foreigners from the farms of the revenue, ordering all payments to

be regularly made into the exchequer, revoking all late grants of

the crown, and giving the parties damages in the case of vexatious

prosecutions. But what chiefly grieved the king was the ordinance for

the removal of evil counsellors, by which a great number of persons

were by name excluded from every office of power and profit; and Piers

Gavaston himself was forever banished the king’s dominions, under the

penalty, in case of disobedience, of being declared a public enemy.

Other persons, more agreeable to the barons, were substituted in all the

offices. And it was ordained that, for the future, all the considerable

dignities in the household, as well as by the law, revenue, and military

governments, should be appointed by the baronage in parliament; and

the power of making war, or assembling his military tenants, should

no longer be vested solely in the king, nor be exercised without the

consent of the nobility.

Edward, from the same weakness both in his temper and situation which

had engaged him to grant this unlimited commission to the barons, was

led to give a parliamentary sanction to their ordinances; but as a

consequence of the same character, he secretly made a protest against

them, and declared that, since the commission was granted only for the

making of ordinances to the advantage of king and kingdom, such articles

as should be found prejudicial to both, were to be held as not ratified

and confirmed.[**]

* Brady’s App. No. 51.

** Ryley’s Placit. Parl. p. 530, 541.

It is no wonder, indeed, that he retained a firm purpose to revoke

ordinances which had been imposed on him by violence, which entirely

annihilated the royal authority, and above all, which deprived him of

the company and society of a person whom, by an unusual infatuation, he

valued above all the world, and above every consideration of interest or

tranquillity.

As soon, therefore, as Edward, removing to York, had freed himself from

the immediate terror of the barons’ power, he invited back Gavaston from

Flanders, which that favorite had made the place of his retreat; and

declaring his banishment to be illegal, and contrary to the laws and

customs of the kingdom,[*] openly reinstated him in his former credit

and authority.

{1312.} The barons, highly provoked at this disappointment, and

apprehensive of danger to themselves from the declared animosity of so

powerful a minion, saw that either his or their ruin was now inevitable;

and they renewed with redoubled zeal their former confederacies against

him. The earl of Lancaster was a dangerous head of this alliance; Guy,

earl of Warwick, entered into it with a furious and precipitate passion;

Humphrey Bohun, earl of Hereford, the constable, and Aymer de Valence,

earl of Pembroke, brought to it a great accession of power and interest;

even Earl Warrenne deserted the royal cause, which he had hitherto

supported, and was induced to embrace the side of the confederates;[**]

and as Robert de Winchelsey, archbishop of Canterbury, professed

himself of the same party, he determined the body of the clergy, and

consequently the people, to declare against the king and his minion. So

predominant at that time was the power of the great nobility, that the

combination of a few of them was always able to shake the throne; and

such a universal concurrence became irresistible. The earl of Lancaster

suddenly raised an army, and marched to York, where he found the king

already removed to Newcastle:[***] he flew thither in pursuit of him,

and Edward had just time to escape to Tinmouth, where he embarked,

and sailed with Gavaston to Scarborough. He left his favorite in that

fortress, which, had it been properly supplied with provisions, was

deemed impregnable, and he marched forward to York, in hopes of raising

an army which might be able to support him against his enemies.

* Brady’s App. No. 53. Walsing. p. 98.

** Trivet, Cont. p. 4.

*** Walsing. p. 101.

Pembroke was sent by the confederates to besiege the Castle of

Scarborough, and Gavaston, sensible of the bad condition of his

garrison, was obliged to capitulate, and to surrender himself

prisoner.[*] He stipulated that he should remain in Pembroke’s hands for

two months; that endeavors should, during that time, be mutually used

for a general accommodation; that if the terms proposed by the barons

were not accepted, the castle should be restored to him in the same

condition as when he surrendered it; and that the earl of Pembroke

and Henry Piercy should, by contract, pledge all their lands for the

fulfilling of these conditions.[**] Pembroke, now master of the person

of this public enemy, conducted him to the Castle of Dedington, near

Banbury, where, on pretence of other business, he left him, protected

by a feeble guard.[***] Warwick, probably in concert with Pembroke,

attacked the castle: the garrison refused to make any resistance;

Gavaston was yielded up to him, and conducted to Warwick Castle;

the earls of Lancaster, Hereford, and Arundel immediately repaired

thither;[****] and, without any regard either to the laws or the

military capitulation, they ordered the head of the obnoxious favorite

to be struck off by the hands of the executioner.[*****]

The king had retired northward to Berwick, when he heard of Gavaston’s

murder; and his resentment was proportioned to the affection which he

had ever borne him while living. He threatened vengeance on all

the nobility who had been active in that bloody scene; and he made

preparations for war in all parts of England. But being less constant in

his enmities than in his friendships, he soon after hearkened to terms

of accommodation; granted the barons a pardon of all offences; and as

they stipulated to ask him publicly pardon on their knees,[******] he

was so pleased with these vain appearances of submission, that he seemed

to have sincerely forgiven them all past injuries. But as they still

pretended, notwithstanding their lawless conduct, a great anxiety for

the maintenance of law, and required the establishment of their former

ordinances, as a necessary security for that purpose, Edward told them

that he was willing to grant them a free and legal confirmation of such

of those ordinances as were not entirely derogatory to the prerogative

of the crown. This answer was received for the present as satisfactory.

The king’s person, after the death of Gavaston, was now become less

obnoxious to the public; and as the ordinances insisted on appeared

to be nearly the same with those which had formerly been extorted from

Henry III. by Mountfort, and which had been attended with so many fatal

consequences, they were, on that account, demanded with less vehemence

by the nobility and people. The minds of all men seemed to be much

appeased; the animosities of faction no longer prevailed; and England,

now united under its head, would henceforth be able, it was hoped, to

take vengeance on all its enemies, particularly on the Scots, whose

progress was the object of general resentment and indignation.

* Walsing, p. 101.

** Rymer, vol ii. p. 324.

*** T de la More, p. 593.

**** Dugd. Baron, vol. ii. p. 44.

***** Walsing, p. 101. T. de la More, p. 593. Trivet, Cont. p.

9*

****** Ryley, p. 538. Rymer, vol. iii. p. 366.

Immediately after Edward’s retreat from Scotland, Robert Bruce left his

fastnesses, in which he intended to have sheltered his feeble army; and

supplying his defect of strength by superior vigor and abilities, he

made deep impression on all his enemies, foreign and domestic. He chased

Lord Argyle and the chieftain of the Macdowals from their hills, and

made himself entirely master of the high country; he thence invaded

with success the Cummins in the low countries of the north: he took

the castles of Inverness, Forfar, and Brechin; he daily gained some new

accession of territory; and what was a more important acquisition, he

daily reconciled the minds of the nobility to his dominion, and enlisted

under his standard every bold leader, whom he enriched by the spoils

of his enemies. Sir James Douglas, in whom commenced the greatness and

renown of that warlike family, seconded him in all his enterprises:

Edward Bruce, Robert’s own brother, distinguished himself by acts of

valor; and the terror of the English power being now abated by the

feeble conduct of the king, even the least sanguine of the Scots began

to entertain hopes of recovering their independence; and the whole

kingdom, except a few fortresses which he had not the means to attack,

had acknowledged the authority of Robert.

In this situation, Edward had found it necessary to grant a truce to

Scotland; and Robert successfully employed the interval in consolidating

his power, and introducing order into the civil government, disjointed

by a long continuance of wars and factions. The interval was very short;

the truce, ill observed on both sides, was at last openly violated, and

war recommenced with greater fury than ever. Robert, not content with

defending himself, had made successful inroads into England, subsisted

his needy followers by the plunder of that country, and taught them to

despise the military genius of a people who had long been the object of

their terror. Edward at last, roused from his lethargy, had marched an

army into Scotland, and Robert, determined not to risk too much against

an enemy so much superior, retired again into the mountains. The king

advanced beyond Edinburgh; but being destitute of provisions, and being

ill supported by the English nobility, who were then employed in framing

their ordinances, he was soon obliged to retreat, without gaining any

advantage over the enemy. But the appearing union of all the parties in

England, after the death of Gavaston, seemed to restore that kingdom to

its native force, opened again the prospect of reducing Scotland, and

promised a happy conclusion to a war, in which both the interests and

passions of the nation were so deeply engaged.

{1314.} Edward assembled forces from all quarters, with a view of

finishing at one blow this important enterprise. He summoned the most

warlike of his vassals from Gascony; he enlisted troops from Flanders

and other foreign countries; he invited over great numbers of the

disorderly Irish as to a certain prey; he joined to them a body of the

Welsh, who were actuated by like motives; and, assembling the whole

military force of England, he marched to the frontiers with an army

which, according to the Scotch writers, amounted to a hundred thousand

men.

The army collected by Robert exceeded not thirty thousand combatants;

but being composed of men who had distinguished themselves by many acts

of valor, who were rendered desperate by their situation, and who were

inured to all the varieties of fortune, they might justly, under such

a leader, be deemed formidable to the most numerous and best appointed

armies. The Castle of Stirling, which, with Berwick, was the only

fortress in Scotland that remained in the hands of the English, had long

been besieged by Edward Bruce: Philip de Mowbray, the governor, after

an obstinate defence, was at last obliged to capitulate, and to promise,

that if, before a certain day, which was now approaching, he were not

relieved, he should open his gates to the enemy.[*]

* Rymer, vol. iii. p. 481.

Robert, therefore, sensible that here was the ground on which he must

expect the English, chose the field of battle with all the skill and

prudence imaginable, and made the necessary preparations for their

reception. He posted himself at Bannockburn, about two miles from

Stirling, where he had a hill on his right flank, and a morass on his

left; and not content with having taken these precautions to prevent his

being surrounded by the more numerous army of the English, he foresaw

the superior strength of the enemy in cavalry, and made provision

against it. Having a rivulet in front, he commanded deep pits to be dug

along its banks, and sharp stakes to be planted in them; and he ordered

the whole to be carefully covered over with turf.[*] The English arrived

in sight on the evening, and a bloody conflict immediately ensued

between two bodies of cavalry; where Robert, who was at the head of the

Scots, engaged in single combat with Henry de Bohun, a gentleman of the

family of Hereford; and at one stroke cleft his adversary to the chin

with a battle-axe, in sight of the two armies. The English horse fled

with precipitation to their main body.

The Scots, encouraged by this favorable event, and glorying in the

valor of their prince, prognosticated a happy issue to the combat on the

ensuing day: the English, confident in their numbers, and elated with

former successes, longed for an opportunity of revenge; and the night,

though extremely short in that season and in that climate, appeared

tedious to the impatience of the several combatants. Early in the

morning, Edward drew out his army, and advanced towards the Scots.

The earl of Glocester, his nephew, who commanded the left wing of the

cavalry, impelled by the ardor of youth, rushed on to the attack without

precaution, and fell among the covered pits, which had been prepared

by Bruce for the reception of the enemy.[**] This body of horse was

disordered; Glocester himself was overthrown and slain: Sir James

Douglas, who commanded the Scottish cavalry, gave the enemy no leisure

to rally, but pushed them off the field with considerable loss, and

pursued them in sight of their whole line of infantry. While the English

army were alarmed with this unfortunate beginning of the action, which

commonly proves decisive, they observed an army on the heights towards

the left, which seemed to be marching leisurely in order to surround

them; and they were distracted by their multiplied fears. This was a

number of wagoners and sumpter boys, whom Robert had collected; and

having supplied them with military standards, gave them the appearance

at a distance of a formidable body.

* T. de la More, p. 594.

** T. de la More, p. 594.

The stratagem took effect: a panic seized the English: they threw down

their arms and fled: they were pursued with great slaughter for the

space of ninety miles, till they reached Berwick: and the Scots, besides

an inestimable booty, took many persons of quality prisoners, and above

four hundred gentlemen, whom Robert treated with great humanity,[*] and

whose ransom was a new accession of wealth to the victorious army. The

king himself narrowly escaped by taking shelter in Dunbar, whose gates

were opened to him by the earl of March; and he thence passed by sea to

Berwick.

* Ypod. Neust. p. 501.

Such was the great and decisive battle of Bannockburn, which secured the

independence of Scotland, fixed Bruce on the throne of that kingdom, and

may be deemed the greatest overthrow that the English nation, since the

conquest, has ever received. The number of slain on those occasions is

always uncertain, and is commonly much magnified by the victors: but

this defeat made a deep impression on the mind of the English; and it

was remarked that, for some years, the superiority of numbers could

encourage them to keep the field against the Scots. Robert, in order to

avail himself of his present success, entered England, and ravaged all

the northern counties without opposition: he besieged Carlisle; but that

place was saved by the valor of Sir Andrew Harcla, the governor: he

was more successful against Berwick, which he took by assault: and this

prince, elated by his continued prosperity, now entertained hopes of

making the most important conquests on the English.

{1315.} He sent over his brother Edward, with an army of six thousand

men, into Ireland; and that nobleman assumed the title of king of that

island; he himself followed soon after with more numerous forces: the

horrible and absurd oppressions which the Irish suffered under the

English government, made them, at first, fly to the standard of the

Scots, whom they regarded as their deliverers: but a grievous famine,

which at that time desolated both Ireland and Britain, reduced the

Scottish army to the greatest extremities; and Robert was obliged to

return, with his forces much diminished, into his own country. His

brother, after having experienced a variety or fortune, was defeated

and slain near Dundalk by the English, commanded by Lord Bermingham: and

these projects, too extensive for the force of the Scottish nation, thus

vanished into smoke.

Edward, besides suffering those disasters from the invasion of the Scots

and the insurrection of the Irish, was also infested with a rebellion

in Wales; and above all, by the factions of his own nobility, who took

advantage of the public calamities, insulted his fallen fortunes, and

endeavored to establish their own independence on the ruins of the

throne. Lancaster and the barons of his party, who had declined

attending him on his Scottish expedition, no sooner saw him return with

disgrace, than they insisted on the renewal of their ordinances, which,

they still pretended, had validity; and the king’s unhappy situation

obliged him to submit to their demands. The ministry was new-modelled by

the direction of Lancaster:[*] that prince was placed at the head of the

council: it was declared, that all the offices should be filled, from

time to time, by the votes of parliament, or rather by the will of the

great barons:[**] and the nation, under this new model of government,

endeavored to put itself in a better posture of defence against the

Scots. But the factious nobles were far from being terrified with the

progress of these public enemies: on the contrary, they founded the

hopes of their own future grandeur on the weakness and distresses of the

crown: Lancaster himself was suspected, with great appearance of reason,

of holding a secret correspondence with the king of Scots: and though he

was intrusted with the command of the English armies, he took care that

every enterprise should be disappointed, and every plan of operations

prove unsuccessful.

* Ryley, p, 560. Rymer, vol. iii. p. 722.

** Brady vol. ii. p. 122, from the records, App. No. 61.

Ryley p. 560.

All the European kingdoms, especially that of England, were at this time

unacquainted with the office of a prime minister, so well understood

at present in all regular monarchies; and the people could form

no conception of a man who, though still in the rank of a subject,

possessed all the power of a sovereign, eased the prince of the burden

of affairs, supplied his want of experience or capacity, and maintained

all the rights of the crown, without degrading the greatest nobles

by their submission to his temporary authority. Edward was plainly by

nature unfit to hold himself the reins of government: he had no vices,

but was unhappy in a total incapacity for serious business: he was

sensible of his own defects, and necessarily sought to be governed:

yet every favorite whom he successively chose, was regarded as a

fellow-subject exalted above his rank and station: he was the object of

envy to the great nobility: his character and conduct were decried with

the people: his authority over the king and kingdom was considered as a

usurpation: and unless the prince had embraced the dangerous expedient

of devolving his power on the earl of Lancaster, or some mighty baron,

whose family interest was so extensive as to be able alone to maintain

his influence, he could expect no peace or tranquillity upon the throne.

The king’s chief favorite, after the death of Gavaston, was Hugh le

Despenser, or Spenser, a young man of English birth, of high rank, and

of a noble family.[*] He possessed all the exterior accomplishments of

person and address which were fitted to engage the weak mind of Edward;

but was destitute of that moderation and prudence which might have

qualified him to mitigate the envy of the great, and conduct him through

all the perils of that dangerous station to which he was advanced. His

father, who was of the same name, and who, by means of his son, had also

attained great influence over the king, was a nobleman venerable from

his years, respected through all his past life for wisdom, valor, and

integrity, and well fitted by his talents and experience, could affairs

have admitted of any temperament, to have supplied the defects both of

the king and of his minion.[**] But no sooner was Edward’s attachment

declared for young Spenser, than the turbulent Lancaster, and most of

the great barons, regarded him as their rival, made him the object of

their animosity, and formed violent plans for his ruin.[***] They first

declared their discontent by withdrawing from parliament; and it was

not long ere they found a pretence for proceeding to greater extremities

against him.

{1321.} The king, who set no limits to his bounty toward his minions,

had married the younger Spenser to his niece one of the coheirs of the

earl of Glocester, slain at Bannockburn. The favorite, by his succession

to that opulent family, had inherited great possessions in the marches

of Wales,[****] and being desirous of extending still farther his

influence in those quarters, he is accused of having committed injustice

on the barons of Audley and Ammori, who had also married two sisters of

the same family.

* Dugd. Baron, vol. i. p. 389.

** T. de la More, p. 594.

*** Walsing. p. 113. T. de la More, p. 595. Murimuth, p. 55.

**** Trivet, Cont. p. 25.

There was likewise a baron in that neighborhood, called William de

Braouse, lord of Gower, who had made a settlement of his estate on John

de Mowbray, his son-in-law; and in case of failure of that nobleman and

his issue, had substituted the earl of Hereford in the succession to the

barony of Gower. Mowbray, on the decease of his father-in-law, entered

immediately in possession of the estate, without the formality of taking

livery and seizin from the crown; but Spenser, who coveted that barony,

persuaded the king to put in execution the rigor of the feudal law, to

seize Gower as escheated to the crown, and to confer it upon him.[*]

This transaction, which was the proper subject of a lawsuit, immediately

excited a civil war in the kingdom. The earls of Lancaster and Hereford

flew to arms: Audle and Ammori joined them with all their forces:

the two Rogers de Mortimer and Roger de Clifford, with many others,

disgusted for private reasons at the Spensers, brought a considerable

accession to the party; and their army being now formidable, they sent a

message to the king, requiring him immediately to dismiss or confine the

younger Spenser; and menacing him, in case of refusal, with renouncing

their allegiance to him, and taking revenge on that minister by their

own authority. They scarcely waited for an answer; but immediately fell

upon the lands of young Spenser, which they pillaged and destroyed;

murdered his servants, drove off his cattle, and burned his houses.[**]

They thence proceeded to commit like devastations on the estates of

Spenser the father, whose character they had hitherto seemed to respect.

And having drawn and signed a formal association among themselves,[***]

they marched to London with all their forces, stationed themselves in

the neighborhood of that city, and demanded of the king the banishment

of both the Spensers.

* Monach. Malms.

** Murimuth, p. 55.

*** Tyrrel, vol. ii p. 280, from the register of C. C.

Canterbury.

These noblemen were then absent; the father abroad, the son at sea;

and both of them employed in different commissions: the king therefore

replied, that his coronation oath, by which he was bound to observe the

laws, restrained him from giving his assent to so illegal a demand,

or condemning noblemen who were accused of no crime, nor had any

opportunity afforded them of making answer.[*] Equity and reason were

but a feeble opposition to men who had arms in their hands, and who,

being already involved in guilt, saw no safety but in success and

victory. They entered London with their troops; and giving in to the

parliament, which was then sitting, a charge against the Spensers, of

which they attempted not to prove one article, they procured, by menaces

and violence, a sentence of attainder and perpetual exile against these

ministers.[**] This sentence was voted by the lay barons alone; for

the commons, though now an estate in parliament, were yet of so little

consideration, that their assent was not demanded; and even the votes

of the prelates were neglected amidst the present disorders. The only

symptom which these turbulent barons gave of their regard to law,

was their requiring from the king an indemnity for their illegal

proceedings;[***] after which they disbanded their army, and separated,

in security, as they imagined, to their several castles.

This act of violence, in which the king was obliged to acquiesce,

rendered his person and his authority so contemptible, that every one

thought himself entitled to treat him with neglect. The queen, having

occasion soon after to pass by the castle of Leeds in Kent, which

belonged to the lord Badlesmere, desired a night’s lodging, but was

refused admittance; and some of her attendants, who presented themselves

at the gate, were killed.[****] The insult upon this princess, who had

always endeavored to live on good terms with the barons, and who joined

them heartily in their hatred of the young Spenser, was an action which

nobody pretended to justify; and the king thought that he might, without

giving general umbrage, assemble an army, and take vengeance on the

offender. No one came to the assistance of Badlesmere; and Edward

prevailed.[*****]

* Walsing. p. 114.

** Tottle’s Collect, part ii p. 50. Walsing. p. 114.

*** Tottle’s Collect, part ii. p. 54. Rymer, vol. iii. p. 891.

**** Rymer, vol. iii. p. 89. Walsing. p. 114, 115. T. de la

Mare, p. 595. Murimuth, p. 56.

***** Walsing. p. 115.

But having now some forces on foot, and having concerted measures with

his friends throughout England, he ventured to take off the mask, to

attack all his enemies, and to recall the two Spensers, whose sentence

he declared illegal, unjust, contrary to the tenor of the Great Charter,

passed without the assent of the prelates, and extorted by violence from

him and the estate of barons.[*] Still the commons were not mentioned by

either party.

{1322.} The king had now got the start of the barons, an advantage

which, in those times, was commonly decisive, and he hastened with

his army to the marches of Wales, the chief seat of the power of his

enemies, whom he found totally unprepared for resistance. Many of the

barons in those parts endeavored to appease him by submission:[**]

their castles were seized, and their persons committed to custody. But

Lancaster, in order to prevent the total ruin of his party, summoned

together his vassals and retainers; declared his alliance with Scotland,

which had long been suspected; received the promise of a reënforcement

from that country, under the command of Randolf, earl of Murray, and Sir

James Douglas;[***] and being joined by the earl of Hereford, advanced

with all his forces against the king, who had collected an army of

thirty thousand men, and was superior to his enemies. Lancaster posted

himself at Burton upon Trent, and endeavored to defend the passages of

the river:[****] but being disappointed in that plan of operations, this

prince, who had no military genius, and whose personal courage was even

suspected, fled with his army to the north, in expectation of being

there joined by his Scottish allies.[*****] He was pursued by the king,

and his army diminished daily, till he came to Boroughbridge, where he

found Sir Andrew Harcla posted with some forces on the opposite side of

the river, and ready to dispute the passage with him. He was repulsed

in an attempt which he made to force his way: the earl of Hereford was

killed; the whole army of the rebels was disconcerted: Lancaster

himself was become incapable of taking any measures either for flight or

defence; and he was seized without resistance by Harcla, and conducted

to the king.[******]

* Rymer, vol. iii. p. 907. T. de la More, p. 595.

** Walsing. p. 115. Murimuth, p. 57.

*** Rymer, vol. iii. p. 958.

**** Walsing. p. 115.

***** Ypod. Neust. p. 504.

****** T. de la More, p. 596. Walsing. p. 116.

In those violent times, the laws were so much neglected on both sides,

that, even where they might, without any sensible inconvenience, have

been observed, the conquerors deemed it unnecessary to pay any regard to

them. Lancaster, who was guilty of open rebellion, and was taken in

arms against his sovereign, instead of being tried by the laws of

his country, which pronounced the sentence of death against him, was

condemned by a court-martial,[*] and led to execution. Edward, however,

little vindictive in his natural temper, here indulged his revenge,

and employed against the prisoner the same indignities which had been

exercised by his orders against Gavaston. He was clothed in a mean

attire, placed on a lean jade without a bridle, a hood was put on his

head, and in this posture, attended by the acclamations of the people,

this prince was conducted to an eminence near Pomfret, one of his own

castles, and there beheaded.[**]

* Tyrrel, vol. 11. p. 291.

** Leland’s Coll. vol. i. p. 668.

Thus perished Thomas, earl of Lancaster, prince of the blood, and one of

the most potent barons that had ever been in England. His public conduct

sufficiently discovers the violence and turbulence of his character:

his private deportment appears not to have been more innocent: and his

hypocritical devotion, by which he gained the favor of the monks and

populace, will rather be regarded as an aggravation than an alleviation

of his guilt. Badlesmere, Giffard, Barret, Cheyney, Fleming, and about

eighteen of the most notorious offenders, were afterwards condemned by

a legal trial, and were executed. Many were thrown into prison: others

made their escape beyond sea: some of the king’s servants were rewarded

from the forfeitures: Harcla received for his services the earldom of

Carlisle, and a large estate, which he soon after forfeited with his

life, for a treasonable correspondence with the king of Scotland. But

the greater part of those vast escheats were seized by young Spenser,

whose rapacity was insatiable. Many of the barons of the king’s party

were disgusted with this partial division of the spoils: the envy

against Spenser rose higher than ever: the usual insolence of his

temper, inflamed by success, impelled him to commit many acts of

violence: the people, who always hated him, made him still more the

object of aversion: all the relations of the attainted barons and

gentlemen secretly vowed revenge: and though tranquillity was in

appearance restored to the kingdom, the general contempt of the king,

and odium against Spenser, bred dangerous humors, the source of future

revolutions and convulsions.

In this situation, no success could be expected from foreign wars; and

Edward, after making one more fruitless attempt against Scotland, whence

he retreated with dishonor, found it necessary to terminate hostilities

with that kingdom, by a truce of thirteen years.[*] Robert, though his

title to the crown was not acknowledged in the treaty, was satisfied

with insuring his possession of it during so long a time. He had

repelled with gallantry all the attacks of England: he had carried war

both into that kingdom and into Ireland: he had rejected with disdain

the pope’s authority, who pretended to impose his commands upon him,

and oblige him to make peace with his enemies: his throne was firmly

established, as well in the affections of his subjects, as by force of

arms: yet there naturally remained some inquietude in his mind, while at

war with a state which, however at present disordered by faction, was

of itself so much an overmatch for him both in riches and in numbers of

people. And this truce was, at the same time, the more seasonable

for England, because the nation was at that juncture threatened with

hostilities from France.

{1324.} Philip the Fair, king of France, who died in 1315, had left the

crown to his son Lewis Hutin, who, after a short reign, dying without

male issue, was succeeded by Philip the Long, his brother, whose death

soon after made way for Charles the Fair, the youngest brother of that

family. This monarch had some grounds of complaint against the king’s

ministers in Guienne; and as there was no common or equitable judge in

that strange species of sovereignty established by the feudal law, he

seemed desirous to take advantage of Edward’s weakness, and under that

pretence to confiscate all his foreign dominions.[**]

* Rymer, vol. iii. p. 1022. Murimuth, p. 60.

** Rymer, vol. iv. p. 74, 98.

After an embassy by the earl of Kent, the king’s brother, had been tried

in vain, Queen Isabella obtained permission to go over to Paris, and

endeavor to adjust, in an amicable manner, the difference with her

brother: but while she was making some progress in this negotiation,

Charles started a new pretension, the justice of which could not be

disputed, that Edward himself should appear in his court, and do

homage for the fees which he held in France. But there occurred many

difficulties in complying with this demand. Young Spenser, by whom

the king was implicitly governed, had unavoidably been engaged in many

quarrels with the queen, who aspired to the same influence, and though

that artful princess, on her leaving England, had dissembled her

animosity, Spenser, well acquainted with her secret sentiments, was

unwilling to attend his master to Paris, and appear in a court where her

credit might expose him to insults, if not to danger. He hesitated no

less on allowing the king to make the journey alone; both fearing lest

that easy prince should in his absence fall under other influence, and

foreseeing the perils to which he himself should be exposed if, without

the protection of royal authority, he remained in England where he was

so generally hated.

{1325.} While these doubts occasioned delays and difficulties, Isabella

proposed that Edward should resign the dominion of Guienne to his son,

now thirteen years of age; and that the prince should come to Paris,

and do the homage which every vassal owed to his superior lord. This

expedient, which seemed so happily to remove all difficulties, was

immediately embraced: Spenser was charmed with the contrivance: young

Edward was sent to Paris: and the ruin covered under this fatal snare,

was never perceived or suspected by any of the English council.

The queen, on her arrival in France, had there found a great number of

English fugitives, the remains of the Lancastrian faction; and

their common hatred of Spenser soon begat a secret friendship and

correspondence between them and that princess. Among the rest was

young Roger Mortimer, a potent baron in the Welsh marches, who had been

obliged, with others, to make his submissions to the king, had been

condemned for high treason; but having received a pardon for his life,

was afterwards detained in the Tower, with an intention of rendering his

confinement perpetual, He was so fortunate as to make his escape into

France;[*] and being one of the most considerable persons now remaining

of the party, as well as distinguished by his violent animosity against

Spenser, he was easily admitted to pay his court to Queen Isabella. The

graces of his person and address advanced him quickly in her affections:

he became her confident and counsellor in all her measures; and gaining

ground daily upon her heart, he engaged her to sacrifice at last, to her

passion, all the sentiments of honor and of fidelity to her husband.[**]

* Rymer, vol. iv. p. 7, 8, 20. T. de la More, p. 596.

Walsing.[** unclear] p. 120. Ypoa. Neust. p. 506.

** T. de la More, p. 598. Murimuth, p. 65.

Hating now the man whom she had injured, and whom she never valued, she

entered ardently into all Mortimer’s conspiracies; and having artfully

gotten into her hands the young prince, and heir of the monarchy, she

resolved on the utter ruin of the king, as well as of his favorite. She

engaged her brother to take part in the same criminal purpose: her court

was daily filled with the exiled barons: Mortimer lived in the most

declared intimacy with her: a correspondence was secretly carried on

with the malecontent party in England: and when Edward, informed of

those alarming circumstances, required her speedily to return with

the prince, she publicly replied, that she would never set foot in the

kingdom till Spenser was forever removed from his presence and councils;

a declaration which procured her great popularity in England, and threw

a decent veil over all her treasonable enterprises.

Edward endeavored to put himself in a posture of defence;[*] but,

besides the difficulties arising from his own indolence and slender

abilities, and the want of authority, which of consequence attended all

his resolutions, it was not easy for him, in the present state of the

kingdom and revenue, to maintain a constant force ready to repel an

invasion, which he knew not at what time or place he had reason to

expect.

* Rymer, vol. iv. p. 184, 188, 225.

All his efforts were unequal to the traitorous and hostile conspiracies

which, both at home and abroad, were forming against his authority,

and which were daily penetrating farther even into his own family. His

brother, the earl of Kent, a virtuous but weak prince, who was then at

Paris, was engaged by his sister-in-law, and by the king of France, who

was also his cousin-german, to give countenance to the invasion,

whose sole object, he believed, was the expulsion of the Spensers: he

prevailed on his elder brother, the earl of Norfolk, to enter secretly

into the same design: the earl of Leicester, brother and heir of

the earl of Lancaster, had too many reasons for his hatred of these

ministers to refuse his concurrence. Walter de Reynel, archbishop of

Canterbury, and many of the prelates, expressed their approbation of

the queen’s measures: several of the most potent barons, envying the

authority of the favorite, were ready to fly to arms: the minds of

the people, by means of some truths and many calumnies, were strongly

disposed to the same party: and there needed but the appearance of the

queen and prince, with such a body of foreign troops as might protect

her against immediate violence, to turn all this tempest, so artfully

prepared, against the unhappy Edward.

{1326.} Charles, though he gave countenance and assistance to the

faction, was ashamed openly to support the queen and prince against the

authority of a husband and father; and Isabella was obliged to court the

alliance of some other foreign potentate, from whose dominions she might

set out on her intended enterprise. For this purpose, she affianced

young Edward, whose tender age made him incapable to judge of the

consequences, with Philippa, daughter of the count of Holland and

Hainault;[*] and having, by the open assistance of this prince, and the

secret protection of her brother, enlisted in her service near three

thousand men, she set sail from the harbor of Dort, and landed safely,

and without opposition, on the coast of Suffolk. The earl of Kent was in

her company: two other princes of the blood, the earl of Norfolk and

the earl of Leicester, joined her soon after her landing with all their

followers: three prelates, the bishops of Ely, Lincoln, and Hereford,

brought her both the force of their vassals and the authority of their

character:[**] even Robert de Watteville, who had been sent by the king

to oppose her progress in Suffolk, deserted to her with all his forces.

To render her cause more favorable, she renewed her declaration, that

the solo purpose of her enterprise was to free the king and kingdom

from the tyranny of the Spensers, and of Chancellor Baldoc, their

creature.[*] The populace were allured by her specious pretences: the

barons thought themselves secure against forfeitures by the appearance

of the prince in her army: and a weak, irresolute king, supported by

ministers generally odious, was unable to stem this torrent, which bore

with such irresistible violence against him.

Edward, after trying in vain to rouse the citizens of London to some

sense of duty,[****] departed for the west, where he hoped to meet with

a better reception; and he had no sooner discovered his weakness by

leaving the city, than the rage of the populace broke out without

control against him and his ministers.

* T. de la More, p. 598.

** Walsing. p. 123. Ypod. Neust, p. 507. T. de la More, p.

598., Murimuth, p. 66.

*** Ypod, Neust. p. 508.

**** Walsing. p. 123.

They first plundered, then murdered all those who were obnoxious to

them: they seized the bishop of Exeter, a virtuous and loyal prelate, as

he was passing through the streets; and having beheaded him, they threw

his body into the river.[*] They made themselves masters of the Tower

by surprise; then entered into a formal association to put to death,

without mercy, every one who should dare to oppose the enterprise

of Queen Isabella, and of the prince.[**] A like spirit was soon

communicated to all other parts of England; and threw the few servants

of the king, who still entertained thoughts of performing their duty,

into terror and astonishment.

Edward was hotly pursued to Bristol by the earl of Kent, seconded by the

foreign forces under John de Hainault. He found himself disappointed

in his expectations with regard to the loyalty of those parts; and he

passed over to Wales, where, he flattered himself, his name was more

popular, and which he hoped to find uninfected with the contagion of

general rage which had seized the English.[***] The elder Spenser,

created earl of Winchester, was left governor of the castle of Bristol;

but the garrison mutinied against him, and he was delivered into the

hands of his enemies. This venerable noble, who had nearly reached his

ninetieth year, was instantly without trial, or witness, or accusation,

or answer, condemned to death by the rebellious barons: he was hanged on

a gibbet; his body was cut in pieces, and thrown to the dogs;[****] and

his head was sent to Winchester, the place whose title he bore, and was

there set on a pole and exposed to the insults of the populace.

The king, disappointed anew in his expectations of succor from the

Welsh, took shipping for Ireland; but being driven back by contrary

winds, he endeavored to conceal himself in the mountains of Wales: he

was soon discovered, was put under the custody of the earl of Leicester,

and was confined in the castle of Kenilworth. The younger Spenser, his

favorite, who also fell into the hands of his enemies, was executed,

like his father, without any appearance of a legal trial.[*****]

* Walsing. p. 124. T. de la More, p. 599. Murimuth, p. 66.

** Walsing. p. 124.

*** Murimuth, p. 67.

**** Leland’s Coll. vol. ii. p. 673. T. de la More, p. 599.

Walsing. p. 125. M. Froissard, liv. i. chap. 13.

***** Walsing. p. 125. Ypod. Neust. p, 508.

The earl of Arundel, almost the only man of his rank in England who

had maintained his loyalty, was, without any trial, put to death at the

instigation of Mortimer: Baldoc, the chancellor, being a priest, could

not with safety be so suddenly despatched; but being sent to the bishop

of Hereford’s palace in London, he was there, as his enemies probably

foresaw, seized by the populace, was thrown into Newgate, and soon after

expired, from the cruel usage which he had received.[*] Even the usual

reverence paid to the sacerdotal character gave way, with every other

consideration, to the present rage of the people.

{1327.} The queen, to avail herself of the prevailing delusion,

summoned, in the king’s name, a parliament at Westminster; where,

together with the power of her army, and the authority of her partisans

among the barons, who were concerned to secure their past treasons by

committing new acts of violence against their sovereign, she expected

to be seconded by the fury of the populace, the most dangerous of all

instruments, and the least answerable for their excesses. A charge was

drawn up against the king, in which, even though it was framed by his

inveterate enemies, nothing but his narrow genius, or his misfortunes,

were objected to him; for the greatest malice found no particular crime

with which it could reproach this unhappy prince. He was accused of

incapacity for government, of wasting his time in idle amusements, of

neglecting public business, of being swayed by evil counsellors, of

having lost, by his misconduct, the kingdom of Scotland, and part of

Guienne; and to swell the charge, even the death of some barons, and the

imprisonment of some prelates, convicted of treason, were laid to his

account.[**] It was in vain, amidst the violence of arms and tumult of

the people, to appeal either to law or to reason: the deposition of the

king, without any appearing opposition, was voted by parliament: the

prince, already declared regent by his party,[***] was placed on the

throne: and a deputation was sent to Edward at Kenilworth, to require

his resignation, which menaces and terror soon extorted from him.

* Walsing. p. 126. Murimuth, p. 68.

** Knyghton, p. 2765, 2766. Brady’s App. No. 72.

*** Rymer, vol. iv. p. 137. Walsing, p. 125.

But it was impossible that the people, however corrupted by the

barbarity of the times, still further inflamed by faction, could

forever remain insensible to the voice of nature. Here a wife had first

deserted, next invaded, and then dethroned her husband; had made her

minor son an instrument in this unnatural treatment of his father; had,

by lying pretences, seduced the nation into a rebellion against

their sovereign had pushed them into violence and cruelties that had

dishonored them: all those circumstances were so odious in themselves,

and formed such a complicated scene of guilt, that the least reflection

sufficed to open men’s eyes, and make them detest this flagrant

infringement of every public and private duty. The suspicions which soon

arose of Isabella’s criminal commerce with Mortimer, the proofs which

daily broke out of this part of her guilt, increased the general

abhorrence against her; and her hypocrisy, in publicly bewailing with

tears the king’s unhappy fate,[*] was not able to deceive even the most

stupid and most prejudiced of her adherents. In proportion as the queen

became the object of public hatred the dethroned monarch, who had been

the victim of her crimes and her ambition, was regarded with pity,

with friendship, with veneration: and men became sensible, that all his

misconduct, which faction had so much exaggerated, had been owing to the

unavoidable weakness, not to any voluntary depravity, of his character.

The earl of Leicester, now earl of Lancaster, to whose custody he had

been committed, was soon touched with those generous sentiments;

and besides using his prisoner with gentleness and humanity, he was

suspected to have entertained still more honorable intentions in his

favor. The king, therefore, was taken from his hands, and delivered

over to Lord Berkeley, and Mautravers, and Gournay, who were intrusted

alternately, each for a month, with the charge of guarding him. While he

was in the custody of Berkeley, he was still treated with the gentleness

due to his rank and his misfortunes; but when the turn of Mautravers and

Gournay came, every species of indignity was practised against him, as

if their intention had been to break entirely the prince’s spirit, and

to employ his sorrows and afflictions, instead of more violent and

more dangerous expedients, for the instruments of his murder.[**] It is

reported, that one day, when Edward was to be shaved, they ordered cold

and dirty water to be brought from the ditch for that purpose; and when

he desired it to be changed, and was still denied his request, he burst

into tears which bedewed his cheeks; and he exclaimed, that in spite of

their insolence, he should be shaved with clean and warm water.[***]

* Walsing. p. 126

** Anonymi Hist. p. 838.

*** T. de la Mo’e, p. 602.

But as this method of laying Edward, in his grave appeared still too

slow to the impatient Mortimer, he secretly sent orders to the two

keepers, who were at his devotion instantly to despatch him: and

these ruffians contrived to make the manner of his death as cruel and

barbarous as possible. Taking advantage of Berkeley’s sickness, in whose

custody he then was, and who was thereby incapacitated from attending

his charge,[*] they came to Berkeley Castle, and put themselves in

possession of the king’s person. They threw him on a bed; held him

down violently with a table, which they flung over him; thrust into his

fundament a red-hot iron, which they inserted through a horn; and though

the outward marks of violence upon his person were prevented by

this expedient, the horrid deed was discovered to all the guards and

attendants by the screams with which the agonizing king filled the

castle while his bowels were consuming.

Gournay and Mautravers were held in general detestation, and when the

ensuing revolution in England threw their protectors from power, they

found it necessary to provide for their safety by flying the kingdom.

Gournay was afterwards seized at Marseilles, delivered over to the

seneschal of Guienne, put on board a ship with a view of carrying him to

England; but he was beheaded at sea, by secret orders, as was supposed,

from some nobles and prelates in England, anxious to prevent any

discovery which he might make of his accomplices. Mautravers concealed

himself for several years in Germany; but having found means of

rendering some service to Edward III., he ventured to approach his

person, threw himself on his knees before him, submitted to mercy, and

received a pardon.[**]

* Cotton’s Abridg. p. 8.

** Cotton’s Abridg. p. 66, 81. Rymer, vol. v. p. 600

It is not easy to imagine a man more innocent and inoffensive than the

unhappy king whose tragical death we have related; nor a prince less

fitted for governing that fierce and turbulent people subjected to his

authority. He was obliged to devolve on others the weight of government,

which he had neither ability nor inclination to bear: the same indolence

and want of penetration led him to make choice of ministers and

favorites who were not always the best qualified for the trust committed

to them: the seditious grandees, pleased with his weakness, yet

complaining of it, under pretence of attacking his ministers, insulted

his person and invaded his authority: and the impatient populace,

mistaking the source of their grievances, threw all the blame upon the

king, and increased the public disorders by their faction and violence.

It was in vain to look for protection from the laws, whose voice, always

feeble in those times, was not heard amidst the din of arms--what could

not defend the king, was less able to give shelter to any of the

people: the whole machine of government was torn in pieces with fury and

violence; and men, instead of regretting the manners of their age, and

the form of their constitution, which required the most steady and most

skilful hand to conduct them, imputed all errors to the person who had

the misfortune to be intrusted with the reins of empire.

But though such mistakes are natural and almost unavoidable while the

events are recent, it is a shameful delusion in modern historians,

to imagine that all the ancient princes who were unfortunate in

their government, were also tyrannical in their conduct; and that the

seditions of the people always proceeded from some invasion of their

privileges by the monarch. Even a great and a good king was not in that

age secure against faction and rebellion, as appears in the case of

Henry II.; but a great king had the best chance, as we learn from the

history of the same period, for quelling and subduing them. Compare

the reigns and characters of Edward I. and II. The father made several

violent attempts against the liberties of the people: his barons opposed

him: he was obliged, at least found it prudent, to submit: but as they

dreaded his valor and abilities, they were content with reasonable

satisfaction, and pushed no farther their advantages against him. The

facility and weakness of the son, not his violence, threw every thing

into confusion: the laws and government were overturned: an attempt

to reinstate them was an unpardonable crime: and no atonement but the

deposition and tragical death of the king himself could give those

barons contentment. It is easy to see, that a constitution which

depended so much on the personal character of the prince, must

necessarily, in many of its parts, be a government of will, not of laws.

But always to throw, without distinction, the blame of all disorders

upon the sovereign would introduce a fatal error in politics, and serve

as a perpetual apology for treason and rebellion: as if the turbulence

of the great, and madness of the people, were not, equally with the

tyranny of princes, evils incident to human society, and no less

carefully to be guarded against in every well-regulated constitution.

While these abominable scenes passed in England, the theatre of France

was stained with a wickedness equally barbarous, and still more public

and deliberate. The order of knights templars had arisen during the

first fervor of the crusades; and uniting the two qualities the most

popular in that age, devotion and valor, and exercising both in the most

popular of all enterprises, the defence of the Holy Land, they had made

rapid advances in credit and authority, and had acquired, from the

piety of the faithful, ample possessions in every country of Europe,

especially in France. Their great riches, joined to the course of time,

had, by degrees, relaxed the severity of these virtues; and the templars

had, in a great measure, lost that popularity which first raised them to

honor and distinction. Acquainted from experience with the fatigues and

dangers of those fruitless expeditions to the East, they rather chose

to enjoy in ease their opulent revenues in Europe: and being all men

of birth, educated, according to the custom of that age, without any

tincture of letters, they scorned the ignoble occupations of a monastic

life, and passed their time wholly in the fashionable amusements of

hunting, gallantry, and the pleasures of the table. Then rival order,

that of St. John of Jerusalem, whose poverty had as yet preserved

them from like corruptions, still distinguished themselves by their

enterprises against the infidels, and succeeded to all the popularity

which was lost by the indolence and luxury of the templars. But though

these reasons had weakened the foundations of this order, once so

celebrated and revered, the immediate cause of their destruction

proceeded from the cruel and vindictive spirit of Philip the Fair, who,

having entertained a private disgust against some eminent templars,

determined to gratify at once his avidity and revenge, by involving the

whole order in an undistinguished ruin. On no better information

than that of two knights, condemned by their superiors to perpetual

imprisonment for their vices and profligacy, he ordered on one day all

the templars in France to be committed to prison, and imputed to them

such enormous and absurd crimes as are sufficient of themselves

to destroy all the credit of the accusation. Besides their being

universally charged with murder, robbery, and vices the most shocking

to nature, every one, it was pretended, whom they received into their

order, was obliged to renounce his Savior, to spit upon the cross,[*]

and to join to this impiety the superstition of worshipping a gilded

head, which was secretly kept in one of their houses at Marseilles.

* Rymer, vol. iii. p. 31, 101.

They also initiated, it was said, every candidate by such infamous rites

as could serve to no other purpose than to degrade the order in his

eyes, and destroy forever the authority of all his superiors over

him.[*] Above a hundred of these unhappy gentlemen were put to the

question, in order to extort from them a confession of their guilt: the

more obstinate perished in the hands of their tormentors: several, to

procure immediate ease in the violence of their agonies, acknowledged

whatever was required of them: forged confessions were imputed to

others: and Philip, as if their guilt were now certain, proceeded to

a confiscation of all their treasures. But no sooner were the templars

relieved from their tortures, than, preferring the most cruel execution

to a life with infamy, they disavowed their confessions, exclaimed

against the forgeries, justified the innocence of their order, and

appealed to all the gallant actions performed by them in ancient or

later times, as a full apology for their conduct. The tyrant, enraged

at this disappointment, and thinking himself now engaged in honor to

proceed to extremities, ordered fifty-four of them, whom he branded as

relapsed heretics, to perish by the punishment of fire in his capital:

great numbers expired, after a like manner, in other parts of the

kingdom: and when he found that the perseverance of these unhappy

victims, in justifying to the last their innocence, had made deep

impression on the spectators, he endeavored to overcome the constancy of

the templars by new inhumanities. The grand master of the order, John de

Molay, and another great officer, brother to the sovereign of Dauphiny,

were conducted to a scaffold erected before the church of Notredame, at

Paris: a full pardon was offered them on the one hand; the fire destined

for their execution was shown them on the other: these gallant nobles

still persisted in the protestations of their own innocence and that

of their order; and were instantly hurried into the flames by the

executioner.[**]

* It was pretended that he kissed the knights who received

him on the mouth, navel, and breech. Dupuy, p. 15, 6.

Walsing, p. 99.

** Vertot, vol. ii. p. 142.

In all this barbarous injustice, Clement V., who was the creature

of Philip, and then resided in France, fully concurred; and without

examining a witness, or making any inquiry into the truth of facts, he

summarily, by the plenitude of his apostolic power, abolished the whole

order. The templars all over Europe were thrown into prison; their

conduct underwent a strict scrutiny; the power of their enemies still

pursued and oppressed them; but nowhere, except in France, were the

smallest traces of their guilt pretended to be found. England sent an

ample testimony of their piety and morals; but as the order was now

annihilated, the knights were distributed into several convents, and

their possessions were, by command of the pope, transferred to the

order of St. John.[*] We now proceed to relate some other detached

transactions of the present period.

The kingdom of England was afflicted with a grievous famine during

several years of this reign. Perpetual rains and cold weather not only

destroyed the harvest, but bred a mortality among the cattle, and raised

every kind of food to an enormous price.[**] The parliament in 1315

endeavored to fix more moderate rates to commodities! not sensible that

such an attempt was impracticable, and that, were it possible to reduce

the price of provisions by any other expedient than by introducing

plenty, nothing could be more pernicious and destructive to the public.

Where the produce of a year, for instance, falls so far short as to

afford full subsistence only for nine months, the only expedient for

making it last all the twelve, is to raise the prices, to put the people

by that means on short allowance, and oblige them to save their food

till a more plentiful season. But in reality the increase of prices is

a necessary consequence of scarcity; and laws, instead of preventing

it, only aggravate the evil, by cramping and restraining commerce. The

parliament accordingly, in the ensuing year, repealed their ordinance,

which they had found useless and burdensome.[***]

The prices affixed by the parliament are somewhat remarkable: three

pounds twelve shillings of our present money for the best stalled ox;

for other oxen, two pounds eight shillings; a fat hog of two years old,

ten shillings; a fat wether unshorn, a crown; if shorn, three shillings

and sixpence; a fat goose, sevenpence halfpenny; a fat capon, sixpence;

a fat hen, threepence; two chickens, threepence; four pigeons,

threepence; two dozen of eggs, threepence.[****]

* Rymer, vol. iii. p. 323, 956; vol. iv. p. 47. Ypod. Neust.

p. 606

** Trivet, Cont. p. 17, 18.

*** Walsing p. 107.

**** Rot. Parl. 7 Edw. II. n. 35, 36. Ypod. Neust. p. 502.

If we consider these prices, we shall find that butcher’s meat, in this

time of great scarcity, must still have been sold, by the parliamentary

ordinance, three times cheaper than our middling prices at present;

poultry somewhat lower, because, being now considered as a delicacy, it

has risen beyond its proportion. In the country places of Ireland and

Scotland, where delicacies bear no price, poultry is at present as

cheap, if not cheaper than butcher’s meat. But the inference I would

draw from the comparison of prices is still more considerable: I suppose

that the rates affixed by parliament were inferior to the usual market

prices in those years of famine and mortality of cattle; and that these

commodities, instead of a third, had really risen to a half of the

present value. But the famine at that time was so consuming, that wheat

was sometimes sold for above four pounds ten shillings a quarter,[*]

usually for three pounds;[**] that is, twice our middling prices:

a certain proof of the wretched state of tillage in those ages. We

formerly found, that the middling price of corn in that period was half

of the present price; while the middling price of cattle was only an

eighth part: we here find the same immense disproportion in years of

scarcity. It may thence be inferred with certainty, that the raising of

corn was a species of manufactory, which few in that age could practise

with advantage: and there is reason to think, that other manufactures,

more refined, were sold even beyond their present prices; at least,

there is a demonstration for it in the reign of Henry VII., from the

rates affixed to scarlet and other broadcloth by act of parliament.

During all those times it was usual for the princes and great nobility

to make settlements of their velvet beds and silken robes, in the same

manner as of their estates and manors.[***] In the list of jewels and

plate which had belonged to the ostentatious Gavaston, and which the

king recovered from the earl of Lancaster after the murder of that

favorite, we find some embroidered girdles, flowered shirts, and silk

waistcoats.[****]

* Murimuth, p. 48. Walsingham (p. 108) says it rose to six

pounds.

** Ypod. Neust. p. 502. Trivet Cont. p. 18.

*** Dugdale, passim.

**** Rymer, vol. iii. p. 288

It was afterwards one article of accusation against that potent and

opulent earl, when he was put to death, that he had purloined some of

that finery of Gavaston’s. The ignorance of those ages in manufactures,

and still more their unskilful husbandry, seem a clear proof that the

country was then far from being populous.

All trade and manufactures, indeed, were then at a very low ebb. The

only country in the northern parts of Europe, where they seem to have

risen to any tolerable degree of improvement, was Flanders. When Robert,

earl of that country, was applied to by the king, and was desired to

break off commerce with the Scots, whom Edward called his rebels, and

represented as excommunicated on that account by the church, the earl

replied, that Flanders was always considered as common, and free and

open to all nations.[*]

The petition of the elder Spenser to parliament, complaining of the

devastation committed on his lands by the barons, contains several

particulars which are curious, and discover the manners of the age.[**]

* Rymer, vol. iii. p. 770.

** Brady’s Hist. vol. ii. p. 143, from Claus. 15 Edw-II. M,

14 Dors. in cedula.

He affirms, that they had ravaged sixty-three manors belonging to him,

and he makes his losses amount to forty-six thousand pounds; that is, to

one hundred and thirty-eight thousand of our present money. Among other

particulars, he enumerates twenty-eight thousand sheep, one thousand

oxen and heifers, twelve hundred cows with their breed for two years,

five hundred and sixty cart-horses, two thousand hogs, together with six

hundred bacons, eighty carcasses of beef, and six hundred muttons in the

larder; ten tuns of cider, arms for two hundred men, and other warlike

engines and provisions. The plain inference is, that the greater part of

Spenser’s vast estate, as well as the estates of the other nobility, was

farmed by the landlord himself, managed by his stewards or bailiffs,

and cultivated by his villains. Little or none of it was let on lease to

husbandmen: its produce was consumed in rustic hospitality by the

baron or his officers: a great number of idle retainers, ready for any

disorder or mischief, were maintained by him: all who lived upon his

estate were absolutely at his disposal: instead of applying to courts of

justice, he usually sought redress by open force and violence: the great

nobility were a kind of independent potentates, who, if they submitted

to any regulations at all, were less governed by the municipal law than

by a rude species of the law of nations. The method in which we find

they treated the king’s favorites and ministers, is a proof of their

usual way of dealing with each other. A party which complains of the

arbitrary conduct of ministers, ought naturally to affect a great regard

for the laws and constitution, and maintain at least the appearance of

justice in their proceedings; yet those barons, when discontented, came

to parliament with an armed force, constrained the king to assent

to their measures, and without any trial, or witness, or conviction,

passed, from the pretended notoriety of facts, an act of banishment

or attainder against the minister, which, on the first revolution of

fortune, was reversed by like expedients. The parliament during factious

times was nothing but the organ of present power. Though the persons of

whom it was chiefly composed seemed to enjoy great independence, they

really possessed no true liberty; and the security of each individual

among them was not so much derived from the general protection of

law, as from his own private power and that of his confederates. The

authority of the monarch, though far from absolute, was irregular, and

might often reach him: the current of a faction might overwhelm him:

a hundred considerations of benefits and injuries, friendships and

animosities, hopes and fears, were able to influence his conduct; and

amidst these motives, a regard to equity, and law, and justice was

commonly, in those rude ages, of little moment. Nor did any man

entertain thoughts of opposing present power, who did not deem himself

strong enough to dispute the field with it by force, and was not

prepared to give battle to the sovereign or the ruling party.

Before I conclude this reign, I cannot forbear making another remark,

drawn from the detail of losses given in by the elder Spenser;

particularly the great quantity of salted meat which he had in his

larder, six hundred bacons, eighty carcasses of beef, six hundred

muttons. We may observe, that the outrage of which he complained began

after the third of May, or the eleventh, new style, as we learn from the

same paper. It is easy, therefore, to conjecture what a vast store of

the same kind he must have laid up at the beginning of winter; and we

may draw a new conclusion with regard to the wretched state of ancient

husbandry, which could not provide subsistence for the cattle during

winter, even in such a temperate climate as the south of England; for

Spenser had but one manor so far north as Yorkshire. There being few or

no enclosures, except perhaps for deer, no sown grass, little hay, and

no other resource for feeding cattle, the barons, as well as the people,

were obliged to kill and salt their oxen and sheep in the beginning of

winter, before they became lean upon the common pasture; a precaution

still practised with regard to oxen in the least cultivated parts of

this island. The salting of mutton is a miserable expedient, which has

every where been long disused. From this circumstance, however trivial

in appearance, may be drawn important inferences with regard to the

domestic economy and manner of life in those ages.

The disorders of the times, from foreign wars and intestine dissensions,

but above all, the cruel famine, which obliged the nobility to dismiss

many of their retainers, increased the number of robbers in the kingdom;

and no place was secure from their incursions.[*] They met in troops

like armies, and over-ran the country. Two cardinals themselves, the

pope’s legates, notwithstanding the numerous train which attended

them, were robbed and despoiled of their goods and equipage, when they

travelled on the highway.[**]

Among the other wild fancies of the age, it was imagined, that the

persons affected with leprosy (a disease at that time very common,

probably from bad diet) had conspired with the Saracens to poison all

the springs and fountains; and men, being glad of any pretence to get

rid of those who were a burden to them, many of those unhappy people

were burnt alive on this chimerical imputation. Several Jews, also, were

punished in their persons, and their goods were confiscated on the same

account.[***]

* Ypod. Neust. p. 502. Walsing. p. 107.

** Ypod Neust. p. 503. T. de la More, p. 594. Trivet, Cont.

p, 22. Murimuth, p. 51.

*** Ypod. Neust. p. 504.

Stowe, in his Survey of London, gives us a curious instance of the

hospitality of the ancient nobility in this period; it is taken from

the accounts of the cofferer or steward of Thomas earl of Lancaster, and

contains the expenses of that earl during the year 1313, which was not

a year of famine. For the pantry, buttery, and kitchen, three thousand

four hundred and five pounds. For three hundred and sixty-nine pipes of

red wine, and two of white, one hundred and four pounds, etc. The whole,

seven thousand three hundred and nine pounds; that is, near twenty-two

thousand pounds of our present money; and making allowance for the

cheapness of commodities, near a hundred thousand pounds.

I have seen a French manuscript, containing accounts of some private

disbursements of this king. There is an article, among others, of a

crown paid to one for making the king laugh. To judge by the events of

the reign, this ought not to have been an easy undertaking.

This king left four children, two sons and two daughters: Edward, his

eldest son and successor; John, created afterwards earl of Cornwall, who

died young at Perth; Jane, afterwards married to David Bruce, king of

Scotland; and Eleanor, married to Reginald, count of Gueldres.