the old king, Edward the Second, was taken and deposed down from his
regality and his crown, and certain of his counsellors beheaded and put
to destruction, then, although he was himself become very old and
ancient, and sick (as it was said) of the great evil and malady, he
bethought him that he would defy the young king, Edward the Third,
because he was young, and that the barons of the realm were not all of
one accord, as it was said. So about Easter, 1327, he sent his defiance
to the young Edward and to all the realm, sending them word how that he
would enter into the realm of England, and bren before him, as he had
done before time. When the King of England and his council perceived
that they were defied, they caused it to be known all over the realm;
and commanded that all the nobles, and all other, should be ready
apparelled, every man after his estate; and that they should be, by
Ascension-day next after, at the town of York, standing northward. An
embassy was sent to Sir John of Hainault, lord of Beamond, by which his
assistance was obtained with a body of foreigners for the sum of
fourteen thousand pounds. This was a brother of the Earl of Hainault,
who had the preceding year accompanied Queen Isabella on her expedition
to England, and had only recently returned to his own country. He and
his men of war now landed at Dover, whence they rode straight to the
town of York, where the king, and the queen his mother, and all his
lords, with a great host, were tarrying their coming. They arrived at
York within three days of Pentecost. The English were lodged two or
three leagues off, all about in the country; the foreigners in the
suburbs of the city, an abbey of monks being assigned to Sir John for
himself and his household. Then the narrative proceeds:--"The gentle
King of England, the better to feast these strange lords and all their
company, held a great court on Trinity Sunday in the Friars, where he
and the queen his mother were lodged, keeping their house each of them
apart. All this feast the king had well five hundred knights, and
fifteen were new made. And the queen had well in her court sixty ladies
and damozelles, who were there ready to make feast and cheer to Sir John
of Hainault and to his company. There might have been seen great nobles,
plenty of all manner of strange victual. There were ladies and
damoselles, freshly apparelled, ready to have danced if they might have
leave. But incontinent after dinner there began a great fray between
some of the grooms and pages of the strangers and of the archers of
England, who were lodged among them in the same suburbs; and anon all
the archers assembled them together with their bows, and drove the
strangers home to their lodging; and the most part of the knights and
masters of them were as yet in the king's court, but, as soon as they
heard tidings of the fray, each of them drew to their own lodging, in
great haste such as might enter, and such as might not get in were in
great peril. For the archers, who were to the number of three thousand,
shot fast their arrows, not sparing masters nor varlets.... And the
Englishmen that were hosts to these strangers shut fast their doors and
windows, and would not suffer them to enter in to their lodgings:
howbeit some got in on the back side, and quickly armed them, but they
durst not issue out into the street for fear of the arrows. Then the
strangers broke out on the back side, and brake down pales and hedges of
gardens, and drew them into a certain plain place, and abode their
company, till at last they were a hundred and above of men of arms, and
as many unharnessed, such as could not get to their lodgings. And, when
they were assembled together, they hasted them to go and succour their
companions, who defended their lodgings in the great street." At the
lodging of the Lord D'Enghien, where there were great gates both before
and behind, opening into the great street, the English archers were
shooting fiercely at the house, and many of the foreigners were hurt;
but three good knights, whose names are given, although they could not
get into their lodgings to arm them, yet did as valiantly as though they
had been armed. "They had great levers in their hands, the which they
found in a carpenter's yard, with the which they gave such strokes that
men durst not approach to them. They three beat down that day, with such
few company as they had, mo than sixty. For they were great and mighty
knights." In the end the English archers were discomfited and put to the
rout, after about three hundred men had been slain on both sides. "I
trow," concludes the hearty old chronicler, "God did never give more
grace and fortune to any people than he did as then to this gentle
knight, Sir John of Hainault, and to his company. For these English
archers intended to none other thing but to murder and to rob them, for
all that they were come to serve the king in his business. These
strangers were never in so great peril all the season that they lay, nor
they were never after in surety till they were again at Wissant in their
own country. For they were fallen in so great hate with all the archers
of the host, that some of the barons and knights of England showed unto
the lords of Hainault, giving them warning that the archers and other of
the common people were allied together to the number of six thousand, to
the intent to bren or to kill them in their lodgings, either by night or
by day. And so they lived at a hard adventure; but each of them promised
to help and aid other, and to sell dearly their lives or they were
slain. So they made many fair ordinances among themself by good and
great advice; whereby they were fain oftentimes to lie in their harness
by night, and in the day to keep their lodgings, and to have all their
harness ready and their horses saddled. Thus continually they were fain
to make watch by their constables in the fields and highways about the
court, and to send out scout-watches a mile off, to see ever if any such
people were coming to themward as they were informed of, to the intent
that, if their scout-watch heard any noise, or moving of people drawing
to the cityward, then, incontinent, they should give them knowledge,
whereby they might the sooner gather together, each of them under their
own banner, in a certain place, the which they had advised for the same
intent. And in this tribulation they abode in the said suburbs by the
space of four weeks, and in all that season they durst not go far fro
their harness, nor fro their lodgings, saving a certain of the chief
lords among them, who went to the court to see the king and his council,
who made them right good cheer. For, if the said evil adventure had not
been, they had sojourned there in great case, for the city and the
country about them was right plentiful. For, all the time of six weeks
that the king and the lords of England, and mo than sixty thousand men
of war, lay there, the victuals were never the dearer; for ever they had
a penny worth for a penny, as well as other had before they came there;
and there was good wine of Gascoign, and of Anjou, and of the Rhine, and
plenty thereof; with right good cheap, as well of pollen[8] as of other
victuals; and there was daily brought before their lodgings hay, oats,
and litter, whereof they were well served for their horses, and at a
meetly[9] price."
How admirably in this way does the garrulous, graphic, picturesque old
chronicler bring before us England and the English five hundred years
ago! Immediately after we have an equally curious picture of the Scots,
and how they went to war, no doubt drawn or at least filled up from
Froissart's own observation when he visited the northern part of the
island some years later. About four weeks after the fray at York, the
army set out and marched forward to the city of Durham, "a day's journey
within the country called Northumberland, the which at that time was a
savage and a wild country, full of deserts and mountains, and a right
poor country of everything saving of beasts; through the which there
runneth a river, full of flint and great stones, called the water of
Tyne." It was now found that the Scots had effected the passage of the
Tyne without being noticed. They had passed at Haydon, about fifteen
miles above Newcastle. "These Scottish men," says Froissart, "are right
hardy, and sore travelling in harness and in wars. For, when they will
enter into England, within a day and a night they will drive their whole
host twenty-four mile, for they are all on horseback, without it be the
traundals and laggers of the host, who follow after a-foot. The knights
and squires are well horsed, and the common people and other on little
hackneys and geldings; and they carry with them no carts nor chariots,
for the diversities of the mountains that they must pass through in the
country of Northumberland. They take with them no purveyance of bread
nor wine, for their usage and soberness is such in time of war that they
will pass in the journey a great long time with flesh half sodden,
without bread, and drink of the river water without wine; and they
neither care for pots nor pans, for they seethe beasts in their own
skins. They are ever sure to find plenty of beasts in the country that
they will pass through. Therefore they carry with them none other
purveyance, but on their horse, between the saddle and the panel, they
truss a broad plate of metal, and behind the saddle they will have a
little sack full of oatmeal, to the intent that, when they have eaten of
the sodden flesh, then they lay this plate on the fire, and temper a
little of the oatmeal; and, when the plate is hot, they cast of the thin
paste thereon, and so make a little cake, in manner of a cracknel or
biscuit, and that they eat to comfort withal their stomachs. Wherefore
it is no great marvel though they make greater journeys than other
people do. And in this manner were the Scots entered into the said
country, and wasted and brent all about as they went, and took great
number of beasts. They were to the number of four thousand men of arms,
knights, and squires, mounted on good horses; and other ten thousand men
of war were armed after their guise, right hardy and fierce, mounted on
little hackneys, the which were never tied nor kept at hard meat, but
let go to pasture in the fields and bushes."
The account that follows of the movements and counter-movements of the
two hosts is one of the most curious and characteristic passages in
Froissart, and a pretty full abstract of it will introduce the reader
better than can be done in any other way both to Edward and his
historian, and to at least one leading department of life in England in
the fourteenth century.
The English, infuriated by what they saw and heard of the
devastations of the invaders, followed them for two whole days by the
guidance of the smoke that marked their destructive course; but,
although they were wasting, burning, and pillaging only five miles
ahead, they could not be overtaken. It was then determined to make for
the Tyne, and, crossing that river, to wait on its northern bank for the
return of the Scots. The march or ride is described as in the highest
degree toilsome and dangerous, many men and horses being lost among the
mountains, rocks, and marshes, and through the continual alarms that
were occasioned by the shouting of those that were foremost at the
harts, hinds, and other savage beasts, they were continually starting,
when those in the rear thought they had got engaged with the enemy, upon
which they hastened to their assistance over all impediments, "with helm
and shield ready appareled to fight, with spear and sword ready in hand,
without tarrying for father, brother, or companion." "Thus," continues
the chronicler, "rode forth all that day the young King of England, by
mountains and depths, without finding any highway, town, or village.
And, when it was against night, they came to the river of Tyne, to the
same place whereas the Scots had passed over into England, weening to
them that they must needs repass again the same way. Then the King of
England and his host passed over the same river, with such guides as he
had, with much pain and travail, for the passage was full of great
stones. And, when they were over, they lodged them that night by the
river side. And by that time the sun was gone to rest, and there was but
few among them that had either axe or hook, or any instrument to cut
down any wood to make their lodgings withal; and there were many that
had lost their own company, and wist not where they were. Some of the
foot-men were far behind, and wist not well what way to take; but such
as knew best the country said plainly they had ridden the same day
twenty-four English miles; for they rode as fast as they might, without
any rest, but at such passages as they could not choose. All this night
they lay by this river side, still in their harness, holding their
horses by their reins in their hands, for they wist not whereunto to tie
them: thus their horses did eat no meat of all that night nor day
before; they had neither oats nor forage for them: nor the people of the
host had no sustenance of all that day nor night, but every man his loaf
that he had carried behind him, the which was sore wet with the sweat of
the horses; nor they drank none other drink but the water of the river,
without it were some of the lords that had carried bottles with them;
nor they had no fire nor light, for they had nothing to make light
withal, without it were some of the lords that had torches brought with
them. In this great trouble and danger they passed all that night; their
armour still on their backs, their horses ready saddled." All the next
day it rained so that neither sustenance nor forage could be procured,
so that they themselves were forced to fast; and their horses had
nothing but leaves of trees and herbs. About noon they learned from some
country people that they were fourteen miles from Newcastle and eleven
from Carlisle, and that these were the nearest towns. Upon this it was
determined to send to Newcastle: and there was a cry, we are told, in
the king's name made in that town, that whosoever would bring bread, or
wine, or any other victual, should be paid for it forthwith at a good
price; it being at the same time proclaimed that the king and his host
would not depart from the place where they were till they had heard some
tidings of the enemy's whereabout. By the next day at noon the purveyors
returned with what they had been able to procure in this way: it was not
over much. But "with them," it is added, "came other folks of the
country, with little nags, charged with bread, evil baken, in paniers,
and small pear wine in barrels, and other victual, to sell in the host,
whereby great part of the host were well refreshed and eased." In this
state they remained for eight days, including the three in which they
had been in a manner without bread, wine, candle or other light, fodder,
forage, or any manner of purveyance; the scarcity even after this being
still so great that a penny loaf of bread was sold for sixpence, and a
gallon of wine, that was worth but sixpence, for six groats. "And yet,
for all that, there was such rage of famine, that each took victuals out
of other's hands, whereby there rose divers battles and strifes between
sundry companions; and yet beside all these mischiefs it never ceased to
rain all the whole week, whereby their saddles, panels, and
countersingles were all rotten and broken, and most part of their horses
hurt on their backs; nor they had naught wherewith to shoe them that
were unshod, nor they had nothing to cover themself withal from the rain
and cold, but green bushes and their armour; nor they had nothing to
make fire withal, but green boughs, the which would not burn because of
the rain." All this while they had heard nothing of the enemy;
discontent began to spread in the camp; it was determined to repass the
river, and proclamation was made that whosoever should first bring to
the king certain information of where the Scots were should be made a
knight and have land to the value of a hundred pounds a year settled
upon him and his heirs for ever. On the fourth day, about three in the
afternoon, a squire, one of fifteen or sixteen who had set forth in the
hope of winning this reward, came riding at a quick pace up to the king,
and, beginning, "An it like your grace, I have brought you perfect
tidings of the Scots your enemies," stated that he had actually been
taken prisoner by them, and brought before the lords of their host, who,
when he told them his object, had dismissed him without ransom, that he
might inform Edward that they were only three miles off, stationed on a
great mountain, and as desirous to find and fight with the English as
the English could be to meet with them. The name of the lucky squire was
Thomas de Rokesby. "As soon," continues our author, "as the king had
heard this tidings, he assembled all his host in a fair meadow to
pasture their horses; and besides there was a little abbey, the which
was all brent, called in the days of King Arthur, Le Blanch Land. There
the king confessed him, and every man made him ready. The king caused
many masses to be sung, to houzel all such as had devotion thereto; and
incontinent he assigned a hundred pounds sterling of rent to the squire
that had brought him tidings of the Scots, according to his promise, and
made him knight with his own hands before all the host. And, when they
had well rested them,[10] and taken repast, then the trumpet sounded to
horse, and every man mounted, and the banners and standers[11] followed
this new-made knight, every battle by itself in good order, through
mountains and dales, ranged as well as they might, ever ready appareled
to fight; and they rode and made such haste that about noon they were so
near the Scots that each of them might clearly see other." The Scots
were posted in three battles, or divisions, on the lower part of the
hill, with a rocky river at their feet, and precipitous rocks on each
flank. This new river was the higher part of the Wear, and the Scots
were on its right or south bank, not far from Stanhope. The English
commanders immediately drew up their forces on their own or the north
side. "And when their battles were set in good order, then some of the
lords of England brought their young king a horseback before all the
battles of the host, to the intent to give thereby the more courage to
all his people; the which king in full goodly manner prayed and required
them right graciously that every man would pain them to do their best,
to save his honour and common weal of his realm. And it was commanded
upon pain of death, that none should go before the marshals' banners,
nor break their array, without they were commanded. And then the king
commanded that they should advance toward their enemies fair and
easily." The Scots, however, though formally invited by a deputation of
heralds-at-arms to come down from their vantage ground, and have the
battle fought fairly in the plain, either that or the following day, as
they might themselves choose, wisely refused to stir. "Sirs," they
answered, "your king and his lords see well how we be here in this
realm, and have brent and wasted the country as we have passed through;
and, if they be displeased therewith, let them amend it when they will,
for here we will abide so long as it shall please us." On this it was
resolved by the English to remain where they were all that night. It was
the night of St. Peter's day, in the beginning of August. They lay in
their arms on the hard and stony ground. "They had no stakes nor rods,"
continues Froissart, "to tie withal their horses, nor forage, nor bush
withal to make any fire. And when they were thus lodged, then the Scots
caused some of their people to keep still the field whereas they had
ordained their battles, and the remnant went to their lodgings, and they
made such fires that it was marvel to behold. And between the day and
the night they made a marvellous great bruit with blowing of horns all
at once, that it seemed properly that all the devils of hell had been
there." This mere show and bravado was repeated on both sides for three
days, all the fighting being a little skirmishing between small parties
that occasionally came forth from either army, and crossed the stream,
some on horseback, some on foot; and the English, who learned from their
prisoners that the Scots, though they had plenty of beef, were run short
of meal, had made up their minds to remain till famine should force
their cautious and unassailable enemy either to fight or surrender. But
behold! on the morning of the fourth day, when they looked at the
mountain, no Scots were to be seen; they had quietly made off in the
middle of the night. About noon, however, they were discovered not far
off, upon another mountain, in a still stronger position, by the same
river side, having now a great wood on one of their flanks, enabling
them to go and come secretly whenever they chose. The English
immediately took their station on an eminence over against them,--in
Stanhope Park, according to the common account; the enemy were again
repeatedly invited to come over and fight fairly in the intermediate
plain; but they were deaf to all such proposals; and thus the two hosts
remained looking at one another for the long space of eighteen more
days. The first night, however, the Lord William Douglas, taking with
him about two hundred men of arms, crossed the river at a distant point,
and suddenly breaking into the English host about midnight, with the cry
of "A Douglas! A Douglas! ye shall all die, thieves of England!" slew or
carried off no fewer than three hundred men: the gallant leader spurring
on, and still alarming the night with his family battle-cry, had even
advanced to the king's tent, two or three of the cords of which he
struck asunder before he was driven off. This surprise made the English
afterwards keep strict watch and ward. At last the Scots again made
their escape during the night; and it was determined to pursue them no
farther. The young king is said to have wept bitterly in yielding to
this necessity. Before they commenced their retreat, or their return to
the south, "diverse of the English host," we are told, mounted on their
horses and passed over the river, and came to the mountain whereas the
Scots had been, and there they found mo than five hundred great beasts
ready slain, because the Scots could not drive them before their host,
and because that the English men should have but small profit of them;
also there they found three hundred cauldrons made of beasts' skins,
with the hair still on them, strained on stakes over the fire, full of
water and full of flesh to be sodden, and more than a thousand spits[12]
full of flesh to be roasted; and more than ten thousand old shoes made
of raw leather, with the hair still on them, the which the Scots had
left behind them; also there they found five poor Englishmen prisoners
bound fast to certain trees, and some of their legs broken." On the
second day about noon the English army, well nigh worn out with fatigue,
reached a great abbey two miles from Durham; on the morrow the king went
forward to that city, and visited the venerable old cathedral and made
his offering; and here every man found his carriage which he had left
thirty-two days before in a wood at midnight, when they first started in
pursuit of the Scots. "The burgesses and people of Durham had found and
brought them into their town at their own costs and charges. And all
these carriages were set in void granges and barns in safeguard, and on
every man's carriage his own cognizance or arms, whereby every man might
know his own. And the lords and gentlemen were glad when they had thus
found their carriages. Thus they abode two days in the city of Durham,
and the host roundabout, for they could not all lodge within the city;
and there their horses were new shod. And then they took their way to
the city of York; and so within three days they came thither, and there
the king found the queen his mother, who received him with great joy,
and so did all other ladies, damozelles, burgesses, and commons of the
city."
Before the end of the year a peace was made with Scotland; and in a
parliament assembled at York in March following, Edward renounced for
himself and his successors all claims of superiority over the crown of
that country; and shortly after, his sister the Princess Jane or Joanna
(called De la Tour, from having been born in the Tower of London) was
carried to Berwick by her mother, and there affianced to David, the
Prince of Scotland, as yet only in his fifth year. The great Bruce died
within a year after (on the 7th of July, 1329), and was succeeded by his
infant son as David the Second; about two years after whose accession
Edward Baliol made a sudden inroad into the country, and got himself
crowned at Scone, but was driven out again in a few weeks. In a second
invasion, however, in the following year, 1333, in which he was assisted
by the English king, the Scots were defeated by Edward, on the 19th of
July, in the great battle of Halidon Hill, near Berwick; upon which that
town was forced to surrender, nearly every other stronghold in the
kingdom immediately followed its example, and the young King David took
refuge in France. Baliol, however, whom these events had again seated on
the throne, was again driven out within a year; the war was carried on
for some years, in the course of which Edward once, in the summer of
1336, proceeded as far north as to Inverness, carrying fire and sword
wherever he appeared; but no permanent occupation or subjugation could
be effected; as soon as the English army disappeared the Scots were
again in arms; in May 1341 David and his queen returned from France; and
at last, in the beginning of 1343, a truce was concluded which left the
two countries at peace for nearly four years.
But long before this time a great domestic revolution had changed
every thing at the court of England. The arrogance of Isabella and
Mortimer, who had early in the new reign been created Earl of March, and
the general conviction of their criminal intimacy, had very soon begun
to disgust the nation; and the alarm of a powerful party had been
excited by the condemnation and execution, in the beginning of 1330, of
Edmund earl of Kent, one of the king's uncles, on pretence of high
treason, his real crime being, as was universally believed, that he was
hated and dreaded by the favourite. Even Edward himself, now eighteen,
was staggered by after-reflection upon this act, though he had been
induced, in the persuasion of the earl's guilt, to give his consent to
it at the time. Already married, too, and a father, for his son Edward,
afterwards so famous as the Black Prince, had been born at Woodstock on
the 15th of June, 1330, he no doubt felt the state of tutelage, or at
least of exclusion from all share in the government, in which he was
kept by his mother and Mortimer, every day more galling. It is said that
the king confided his feelings to the Lord Montacute; and by his advice
it was resolved to make an attempt to seize Mortimer at a parliament
which was to be held at Nottingham in October. At this parliament the
favourite appeared "in such glory and honour," says Stow, "that it was
without all comparison. No man durst name him any other than Earl of
March; a greater rout of men followed at his heels than on the king's
person; he would suffer the king to rise to him, and would walk with the
king equally, step by step and cheek by cheek, never preferring the
king, but would go foremost himself with his officers." While he took up
his own lodgings with the queen and her son in Nottingham Castle, he
directed that the highest of the other nobility, including the king's
cousin, the Earl of Lancaster, should be lodged in the most distant
parts of the town or without it. The conspirators, however, opened their
design to Sir William Eland, who had long been keeper of the castle; and
he engaged to admit them during the night by a subterraneous passage,
leading from a point at a considerable distance on the west side of the
rock, of the existence of which Mortimer was not aware. On the night of
the 19th of October, accordingly, having concerted their plans with the
king, Montacute and his associates entered by this passage. They were
joined by Edward on the principal staircase. Advancing in silence, and
with their naked swords in their hands, they soon came to a room, where
the voice of Mortimer was heard conversing. Leaving the king without,
they rushed in, and slaying two knights, who endeavoured to oppose them,
laid hold of the earl. The queen, who was in bed in the adjoining
chamber, the door of which was open, cried out "Bel filz, Bel filz, Ayez
pitie de gentil Mortimer" (Fair son, fair son, have pity upon gentle
Mortimer); she then rose, and, rushing into the room, passionately
exclaimed that he was a worthy knight, her well-beloved cousin, her
dearest friend; but he was quickly secured and hurried off. At a
parliament held at Westminster about a month after, he was condemned,
with little form of trial, to die the death of a traitor; and he and one
of his confederates were hanged together at the Elms at Tyburn, on the
29th of November. "He hung," Stow tells us, "two days and two nights by
the king's commandment, and then was buried in the Grey Friars' Church,"
now Christ's Hospital, in Newgate Street. Yet Mortimer's attainder was
reversed in 1352, and his honours restored to his grandson; his
great-granddaughter married Lionel Duke of Clarence, the third son of
Edward III.; his great-great-granddaughter and ultimately sole heir, Ann
Mortimer, by her marriage with Richard Plantagenet Earl of Cambridge,
conveyed her right to the crown thence derived to the House of York; her
grandson mounted the throne as Edward IV.; and it has been occupied ever
since the death of Henry VII. by her descendants. As for Queen Isabella,
she was, upon her fall from power, reduced to an income of 3000_l._ a
year (which was afterwards increased to 4000_l._), and ordered to
confine herself in what some authorities call her manor of Risings near
London, others Rising Castle, on the coast of Norfolk, where once a year
her son paid her a visit of ceremony, and where she survived almost
forgotten by the world for nearly eight and twenty years. She died on
the 22nd of August, 1358, and was then buried in the choir of the same
church of the Grey Friars where the body of Mortimer had been laid.