immediate loss of the battle. The Welsh and Irish thought their
opportunity had arrived for obtaining their independence. The
Welsh insurrection was indeed subdued after a year of fighting;
but it required three years before Ireland was again secured to
the English Crown. In that country Edward I. had done but little.
It was in its usual state of disorder. The feuds among the Norman
adventurers, to whom the conquest had been left, were scarcely
less constant or bitter than the wars among the native tribes who
surrounded them. Against these tribes, however, they exercised
the greatest cruelties. To be an Irishman was to be excluded from
all justice, to be classed at once as a robber and murderer. The
news of the Battle of Bannockburn induced the Irish to beg the
assistance of Bruce, and to offer him their crown. He declined it
for himself, but his brother Edward, as ambitious as the Scotch
King, accepted the offer. In May 1315 he landed, supported by the
great tribe of the O’Niells, and probably also by the Norman Lacys,
and was victorious over the combined forces of the Butlers and De
Burghs. In vain did Edward send John of Hotham, a clergyman, to
attempt some combination among the English and the Irish tribes.
The English dislike to the royal lieutenant Butler prevented
union, and in May 1316, O’Niell of Tyrone gave up his claim to
the Irish throne to Edward Bruce, who was crowned King. But a
series of separate attacks upon the natives was more successful.
At Athenry the O’Connors were almost exterminated. The arrival
of King Robert in Ulster, and a march in winter to Limerick and
Dublin, produced no permanent effect, and at length, in 1317,
Roger Mortimer, landing with a considerable army, succeeded in
establishing some order. The Lacys were executed for treason; the
tribes began quarrelling among themselves; and finally, in 1318,
Edward Bruce fell in a battle, in which he was defeated by John of
Birmingham, in the neighbourhood of Dundalk. The English government
was re-established in all its oppression.
[Sidenote: Distress in England.]
[Sidenote: Lancaster temporary minister. 1316.]
[Sidenote: Power of the Despensers.]
Meanwhile, England itself had been in a miserable plight. 1315 and
1316 were years of fearful famine. Prices rose to an unprecedented
height. Wheat was sold for 40 marks a quarter; and Parliament still
further aggravated the evil by fixing a maximum price, which for
a time closed the markets altogether. Terrible diseases followed
in the wake of the famine. Again and again the northern counties
were mercilessly ravaged; whole districts and dioceses were glad
to compound with the Scotch for safety. An attempt was made by a
Parliament in this year to re-establish the national prosperity,
by obliging the King to accept Lancaster as his chief minister.
Lancaster accepted this position, upon the condition that he
should be allowed to resign if the King refused to follow his
advice, or if men objectionable to Parliament were admitted to
the King’s Council. For a moment there was peace. The Ordinances
were accepted, and ordered to be published throughout the country.
But it was not in the King to act honourably when the fortunes of
his favourites were at stake; and Lancaster soon found himself
thwarted by the ever-increasing power of the Despensers. It was in
vain that Pope John XXII. was called in as a mediator. His legates
were equally unsuccessful in their attempts to heal the domestic
quarrels of the country and to establish a truce with Scotland.
Bruce refused to treat unless he was acknowledged as King. He
continued his enterprises, and captured the town of Berwick. The
legates could do nothing but put him under the ban of the Church.
[Sidenote: Temporary reconciliation in England.]
[Sidenote: Truce with Scotland. 1320.]
At last, in 1318, a crisis was reached. The necessity of union
against Scotland began to be obvious. The Despensers were for a
time removed from England, and a committee in the interest of
Lancaster was appointed to watch the royal action in the intervals
of Parliament. This temporary adjustment of affairs in England was
followed before long by a truce with Scotland. Edward tried and
failed in an attempt to regain Berwick. Another furious invasion
had ravaged the North of England, in which no less than eighty-four
towns and villages were burned. It was plain that the Scotch were
too strong for him. At the same time Bruce was anxious to be rid
of the excommunication, and agreed to waive his claim to the
obnoxious title. Under these circumstances there was no difficulty
in treating.
[Sidenote: The Welsh Marches quarrel with the Despensers.]
[Sidenote: Edward quarrels with the Marchers.]
[Sidenote: Hereford and Lancaster combine. 1321.]
[Sidenote: Despensers banished.]
It soon became evident that the late attempts at compromise between
the two parties in England were hollow. The question had to be
tried by an appeal to arms. Nothing could induce the King to get
rid of his favourites, nor the opposition to act in common with
them. It was a little private quarrel, and no great question,
which at length blew the smouldering discontent to a flame. The
marriage of young Hugh Despenser with the daughter of the Earl
of Gloucester, who had died at Bannockburn, had introduced a new
and objectionable power into the midst of the Welsh Marches. A
quarrel arose about a vacant fief, and the Marchers made common
cause against the favourite. The King ordered the question to be
settled before his own court, and subsequently before Parliament;
but Hereford refused to appear unless the Despensers were removed.
As the King vindicated his favourites, and refused to remove
them, Hereford marched northward, joined Lancaster, and made a
formal agreement with him that there should be no peace till
the Despensers were gone. The confederates came in arms to the
Parliament held at Westminster, found themselves completely master
of the King, presented him with eleven articles of reformation, and
procured from him, irregularly, and in spite of the protestations
of the clergy, the condemnation and banishment of the Despensers.
This condemnation was afterwards formed into a statute, and a
pardon given to all those who had compelled the King to grant it.
[Sidenote: Insult to the Queen rouses Edward to energy.]
[Sidenote: He recalls the Despensers. Pacifies the Marches.]
But though Edward had temporarily yielded, parties were so evenly
balanced that very little turned the scale. Young Despenser was
serving as admiral on the coast of Kent. He was therefore safe from
such personal attacks as Gaveston had been exposed to, and the
King was able to repair to the coast and concert measures with him.
As the Queen was travelling from London to Canterbury to meet him,
she was refused admittance to the royal castle of Leeds by the
Governor, Badlesmere. Angry at this insult, the King attacked the
castle and hanged the garrison. It seems to have been felt that, in
insulting the Queen, the opposition party had gone much too far.
The King was able to recall the Despensers, several of the nobles
declared that the late sentence of banishment had been procured by
overwhelming force; and as he marched towards the West against the
Welsh Marches, his brothers, the Earls of Norfolk and Kent, and
several others of the greater nobility, followed his standard. By
occupying the valley of the Severn, he separated the Marchers from
Lancaster, who was collecting troops at Doncaster. Mortimer and
most of the Marchers came to terms, and surrendered. Hereford with
several others, broke through the royal army, and joined Lancaster.
The King’s enemies were now collected into one body, and he rapidly
turned against them. To secure support, and probably in pursuance
of their usual policy, the rebel lords had entered into a treaty
with the Scotch. Bruce was to come to their assistance, but no
conquests that he should make were to be permanent. The price of
his help was to be peace, and the acknowledgment of his royal title.
[Sidenote: Defeats Lancaster at Boroughbridge.]
[Sidenote: Lancaster worshipped as a saint.]
On the approach of the King, the rebels fell back, and were
intercepted at Boroughbridge by Sir Andrew Harklay, Governor
of Carlisle. On attempting to cross the bridge, Hereford was
killed from below; while the fords were so strongly guarded that
the passage of the river seemed impossible. Lancaster, with
some hundred barons and knights, surrendered. He was taken to
Pontefract. The accusations against him, including his treasonable
compact with Bruce, were stated before a committee of the King’s
Barons, and condemnation passed against him unheard. He was
beheaded, with all circumstances of indignity. A considerable
number of barons suffered either with him or immediately after.
Thomas of Lancaster appears to have been an ordinary feudal party
leader, with a policy which was directed chiefly to domestic
reforms and to the curtailment of the royal power. At the same
time, the commonalty of England must have understood that, however
selfish that policy might have been, it yet led, in the existing
state of society, to improvement in the condition of the lower
orders. Not otherwise can we explain the fact that miracles
before long were worked at the tomb of Lancaster, and his memory
so worshipped and honoured by the people, that the King found it
necessary to surround the place of his execution with armed men.
[Sidenote: Triumph of the Despensers.]
[Sidenote: Renewal of war with Scotland.]
[Sidenote: Peace for thirteen years.]
The triumph of the Despensers seemed complete. The elder of them
was made Earl of Winchester. Their policy too was at once adopted.
The Ordinances were revised, all that could touch the King’s
prerogative was cut out. It was ordered especially that hereafter
no baronial committee should dictate laws to the King, but he
“should make all laws concerning the estate of the crown or of
the realm in Parliament, with the consent of the prelates, earls,
barons, and universality of the realm.” The two years’ truce being
now out, the King marched to Scotland, but, like all others of this
reign, the expedition came to nothing. No important battle was
fought. Want of food compelled the English to return, followed by
their indefatigable enemies. So close were they upon their heels,
that at a place called Byland, in Blackmoor Forest, Edward was as
nearly as possible surprised. So unexpected was the attack, that
treason was at once suspected. To the astonishment of all, Sir
Andrew Harklay, who had been made Earl of Carlisle for his services
at Boroughbridge, was proved, for some unexplained reason, to
have been in correspondence with Bruce. For this treason he was
executed. Such constant failures became ridiculous, and at length,
Edward, acknowledging Bruce’s title as King, made a treaty with him
for thirteen years.
[Sidenote: Dangers surrounding the King.]
It seemed for the moment that Edward’s troubles were over. The
baronial party was crushed, their intercourse with the Scotch had
damaged their reputation; the assumption on their part of the
sole power of legislation had produced some reaction. The truce
with Scotland had secured Edward from danger from the North.
There seemed no reason why he and his favourites should not rule
almost as they wished. In fact, however, the crisis of his reign
was approaching; dangers surrounded him on every side. That the
baronial party was still alive and active was soon made evident by
a plot to liberate all the political prisoners. The plot indeed
miscarried, but Mortimer found means to make good his escape from
the Tower, and, taking refuge in France, became a centre round
which disaffection might gather. Want of money, too, was a constant
source of danger; while the meagre grants made by Parliament showed
how general was the national feeling against the government of
the favourites. Nor was the Church in much better temper than
the Barons and the Commons. On more than one occasion the King
had quarrelled with the national Church, which found an active,
able, and somewhat unscrupulous champion in Adam Orleton, Bishop
of Hereford. This man had been deeply implicated in the baronial
movements, had been deprived of his temporalities, and thus
became a determined enemy of the King. While quarrelling with the
national Church, Edward had shown no vigour in opposing Rome. On
two occasions he failed in procuring the election to bishoprics
of his nominees, and yielded without a struggle to the authority
of the Pope. But submission to Rome had now become a sure way of
gaining unpopularity both among clergy and laity. On the death of
Boniface VIII., the grandeur and independence of the old Papal
system had come to an end, but its constant demands upon the
national churches were by no means lessened; and such exactions had
become more intolerable now that the ill-gotten wealth which they
supplied found its way into the hands of a Pope holding his court
at Avignon, a mere creature of the French King: to the old dislike
of Papal supremacy there was now added the national dislike of
France.
[Sidenote: Difficulties with France. 1324.]
[Sidenote: The Queen and Prince in France. 1326.]
To crown Edward’s difficulties, he found himself involved in a
dispute with France. In 1322, Charles IV., son of Philip the Fair,
had ascended the throne. It at once became evident that he intended
to pursue his father’s policy. He demanded personal homage from
King Edward. His ambassadors could procure nothing but the threat
that, unless it was paid, Guienne would be seized. In the little
town of Saint Sardos, in the Agenois, a quarrel between the people
and their English Seneschal brought the matter before the French
King. He summoned Edward before his court. It was clear that the
old machinery of feudal supremacy was again to be set in motion.
War in fact actually began; the French armies captured Ponthieu
and the Agenois. It was in vain that King Edward offered justice
to the aggrieved inhabitants of Saint Sardos in his own courts,
in vain that he sought the mediation of the Pope. He was himself
entirely in the hands of the Despensers; and those noblemen,
afraid probably to allow the King to get beyond the reach of their
personal influence, used all their power to prevent him from going
himself to France. It was at last decided that Queen Isabella, the
French King’s sister, should go to Paris, and try if she could come
to some arrangement. She procured leave for her eldest son Edward
to represent his father, and do homage for Guienne. But, when the
young Prince reached Paris, he was in no haste to return. In fact,
the Queen had fallen in love with Mortimer, and had passed entirely
under his influence and that of the other baronial exiles; and
under the skilful management of Orleton, Mortimer and his friends
were engaged in a great conspiracy. It was in vain that the King
perpetually wrote to demand her return. She pleaded personal dread
of the Despensers, and complained of the King’s ill-usage. For a
woman living in adultery with her husband’s enemy, such charges
are perhaps not worth much; but it does seem probable that as a
high-spirited woman she had much to bear from the King’s partiality
for his favourites, many of whom were men of the lower ranks of
life.
[Sidenote: She lands in England.]
[Sidenote: Her party gathers strength.]
[Sidenote: The King is taken. 1326.]
[Sidenote: Prince of Wales made King.]
[Sidenote: Murder of the King.]
The conspiracy was so widespread, and so judiciously managed, that
her cause was soon regarded as a national one. Nobles, clergy,
and commonalty seem alike to have been in her interest. At the
instigation of the Pope, she was obliged to leave Paris, but she
took the opportunity of going to Hainault, and there contracting a
marriage between her son Edward and the daughter of the Count, and
of engaging that Prince to assist her in her enterprise. On the
24th of September she landed with her foreign auxiliaries at the
mouth of the Orwell. She was joined by the King’s brothers, by his
cousin Henry of Lancaster, and by all the nobility of the East.
The Archbishop of Canterbury supplied her with money. London rose
in her favour. The skilful management of the Bishop of Hereford
won her allies on all sides, and the King found it necessary to
fly before her advance. Leaving the Earl of Winchester in Bristol,
he tried with young Despenser to reach Lundy Isle in the Bristol
Channel. The wind prevented him, and he was driven to land in
Wales. Bristol was taken by the Queen without a siege, and the
King finally fell into the hands of his pursuers in Wales. He was
put into the charge of Henry of Lancaster, brother of the late
Earl, at Kenilworth. William Trussel, whom the Queen had made her
judge, superintended the trial of the Despensers and their friends,
and they were all put to death. In December the Parliament met at
Westminster, and swore fealty to the Queen and Prince. The Bishop
of Hereford put the question whether Edward or his son should
henceforward rule. The assembly declared for the Prince, who
accepted the situation, binding himself to six articles, which seem
to represent the complaints against the King, and which laid to
his charge, the rule of favourites, the contempt of good advice,
the loss of Scotland, acts of violence against the clergy and the
nobles, and the refusal of justice. Isabella pretended to be angry
at this act of deposition, but her pretence could deceive nobody.
Finally, a deputation waited upon the unfortunate Edward, and
procured his resignation. He was hurried from fortress to fortress,
and before long met a cruel death in Berkeley Castle.
[Sidenote: Character of the opposition.]
Throughout the baronial efforts of the reign, constitutional
views and personal interests had been closely interwoven. The
single-minded patriotism of Simon de Montfort had been entirely
absent. It was the personal ambition of a Prince of the blood, of
enormous wealth and influence, which had supplied the baronial
party with their first leader. The vindictive feelings of
personal dislike had produced an unjustifiable murder of the
royal favourite. Success had been followed by an unconstitutional
appropriation of all the powers of government. To support their
supremacy the Barons had not shrunk from an alliance with their
national enemies. To secure a second triumph and revenge they
had adopted the cause of an adulterous Queen and her worthless
favourite. Yet throughout, the pretence of their action had been
the maintenance of the old constitution, and the act which closed
the reign was a formal declaration on the part of Parliament of a
constitutional right of the nation to depose a sovereign who proved
himself unfit for his high position.
EDWARD III., died 1377.
|
1 2 | 3 5 +---+
+-------------------+---+-----+----------------------------+---| A |
| | | | +---+
| | | |
Edward, = Joan, William, Lionel, = Elizabeth |
the Black | daughter died Duke of | de Burgh. |
Prince, | of Earl 1335. Clarence, | |
died 1376. | of Kent, died 1368. | |
| widow Philippa = Edmund |
| of Sir T. | Mortimer, |
| Holland. | Earl of |
| | March. |
Richard II., | |
died 1400. Roger, = Alianore |
Earl of March, | Holland, |
declared heir- | daughter |
apparent, died | of Earl |
in battle in | of Kent. |
Ireland, 1398. | |
| |
+----------------------------------------+ |
| |
| +---------+
+-------+-----------+ +------------+ |
| | | | Edmund = Isabel,
Edmund, Anne = Richard, | Duke of | daughter
died 1424. | Earl of | York, | of Pedro
| Cambridge | Earl of | Castile.
| beheaded at | Cambridge, |
| Southampton | died 1402. |
| for conspiring | |
| against +--------------+
| Henry V., 1415.
|
Richard = Cicely
Duke of York, | Neville,
fought against | daughter of
Henry VI. | Earl of
Killed at | Westmoreland.
Wakefield, |
1460. |
|
+-----------------------+------------------------------+
| | |
Edward IV. = Elizabeth George = Isabel, daughter of |
died 1483. | Woodville. Duke of Earl of Warwick |
| Clarence, (The King-maker). |
| killed |
| 1478. |
Edward V., |
died 1483. +---------------------------------------+
|
|
+-------------------+------------+------------------+
| | |
Richard III. = Anne, daughter Elizabeth = John Margaret = Duke of
died 1485. | of Earl of | de la Burgundy.
| Warwick, widow | Pole.
| of Edward, son |
| of Henry VI. |
| John.
Edward, Declared heir-apparent,
died 1484. d. at Battle of
Stoke, 1487.
+---+ 4 6
| A |--------+-----------------------------+
+---+ | |
| |
Katherine = John = 1. Blanche, Thomas, = Eleanor
Swinford | of Gaunt, | daughter of | de Bohun.
| Duke of | of Duke of Woodstock, |
| Lancaster, | Lancaster Duke of |
| died 1399. | = 2. Constance, Gloucester, |
| | daughter strangled |
John, | of Pedro at Calais |
Earl of | of Castile. 1397. |
Somerset. | |
| Henry IV. = Mary de Anne = Edmund
| died 1413. | Bohun. | Stafford.
+------+ | |
| | Humphrey, = Anne
| | First Duke Neville.
| | of Buckingham
| | killed at
| | Northampton
| | 1460.
| |
| +--------+---------+----------------------+
| | | | |
John Owen = Katherine = Henry V. Thomas, John = 1. Anne of |
| Tudor | daughter of | died Duke of Duke of Burgundy. |
| | Charles VI. | 1422. Clarence, Bedford = 2. Jacquetta |
| | | killed at died of Luxembourg. |
| | | Beaugé, 1435. |
| | | 1421. |
| | | +------------------+
Margaret = Edmund Henry VI. = Margaret |
| Earl of died | of Anjou. Humphrey = Jacqueline
| Richmond 1471. | Duke of of Hainault.
| died 1456. | Gloucester,
| | rival of
| | Beaufort,
| | died 1446.
| |
| Edward = Anne, daughter
Henry VII., killed at of Earl of
died 1509. Tewkesbury Warwick (The
1471. King-maker).
EDWARD III.
1327-1377.
Born 1312 = Philippa of Hainault.
|
+-------------------+---------+-----------+-----------+---------+
| | | | | |
Edward, = Joan of | Lionel, John of Edmund, Thomas of
the Black | Kent. | Duke of Gaunt, Duke of Woodstock,
Prince, | | Clarence, Duke of York, Duke of
d. 1376. | William, d. 1368. Lancaster, d. 1402. Gloucester,
| d. 1335. d. 1399 d. 1397.
Richard II.
CONTEMPORARY PRINCES.
_Scotland._ | _France._ | _Germany._ | _Spain (Castile)._
| | |
Robert I., 1306. | Charles IV., 1322. | Louis IV., | Alphonso XI., 1312.
David II., 1329. | Philip VI., 1328. | 1314. | Pedro, 1350.
Robert II., 1370. | John, 1350. | Charles IV., | Henry II., 1368.
| Charles V., 1364. | 1347. |
POPES.--John XXII., 1316. Benedict XI., 1334. Clement VI., 1342.
Innocent VI. 1352. Urban V., 1362. Gregory XI., 1370.
_Archbishops._
Simon Mepeham, 1328.
John of Stratford, 1333.
Thomas Bradwardine, 1349.
Simon Islip, 1349.
Simon Langham, 1366.
William Whittlesey, 1368.
Simon Sudbury, 1375.
_Chancellors._
Henry of Burghersh, 1327. Robert of Sadyngton, 1343.
John of Stratford, 1330. John of Offord, 1345.
Richard of Bury, 1334. John of Thoresby, 1348.
John of Stratford, 1335. William of Edington, 1356.
Robert of Stratford, 1337. Simon Langham, 1363.
Richard Bynteworth, 1338. William of Wykeham, 1367.
John of Stratford, 1340. Sir Robert Thorpe, 1371.
Robert of Stratford, 1340. Sir John Knyvet, 1372.
Sir Robert Bourchier, 1340. Adam Houghton, 1377.
Sir Robert Parnynge, 1341.
[Sidenote: Measures of reform.]
[Sidenote: Mortimer’s misgovernment.]
As the conquest of England by Queen Isabella and Mortimer had been
ostensibly undertaken for purposes of reform in the government,
and freedom from the influence of favourites, the first measures
taken were such as might befit a reforming party. The charters of
liberty were solemnly renewed, and the removal of the more obvious
abuses promised, the judgment against Lancaster and his friends
was reversed, and the government nominally placed in the hands of
a council of regency, formed of four Bishops, four Earls, and
six Barons. Nevertheless, the real power remained in the hands of
Mortimer; to him and to the Queen a considerable portion of the
royal revenues were diverted, and before long all trace of reform
had disappeared, and Mortimer, forgetful of the pretext which had
secured him his position, and of the fate of his predecessors,
became to all intents and purposes himself a favourite, giving to
that word the meaning which best describes it, an irresponsible
and all-powerful minister. He even surrounded himself, we are
told, with a guard of 180 knights, and altogether adopted an
ostentatious bearing which could not but create enemies; at the
same time his connection with the Queen excited the displeasure of
all respectable men.
[Sidenote: Fruitless campaign against Scotland.]
[Sidenote: Peace.]