EDWARD II.
1307-1327.
[Sidenote: =Character of Edward II.=]
Seldom did a son contrast so strangely with his father as did Edward
of Carnarvon with Edward the Hammer of the Scots. The mighty warrior
and statesman begot a shiftless, thriftless craven, who did his best
to bring to wrack and ruin all that his sire had built up. The younger
Edward's character had been the cause of much misgiving to the old
king during the last years of his life. He had already shown himself
incorrigibly idle and apathetic, refusing to bear his share of the
burdens of royalty, and wasting his time with worthless favourites. The
chief of his friends was one Piers de Gaveston, a young Gascon knight,
whom his father--much to his own sorrow--had made one of his household.
Piers was a young man of many accomplishments, clever, brilliant,
and showy, who kept a bitter tongue for all save his master, and had
an unrivalled talent for making enemies. He kept the listless prince
amused, and in return Edward gave him all he asked, which was no small
grant, for Piers was both greedy and extravagant.
The new king was neither cruel nor vicious, but he was inconceivably
obstinate, idle, and thriftless. It has been happily said of him that
he was "the first King of England since the Conquest who was not a
man of business." Hitherto the descendants of William the Norman had
retained a share of their ancestor's energy; even the weak Henry III.
had been a busy, bustling man, ready to meddle and muddle with all
affairs of state, great or small. But Edward II. took no interest in
anything; the best thing that his apologists find to say of him is that
he showed some liking for farming.
[Sidenote: =The Scottish expedition abandoned.=]
The moment that his father was dead, Edward broke up the
great army that had been mustered at Carlisle, and returned home. If
the campaign had been pursued, there was every chance of crushing
Bruce, whose position was still most precarious, for all the fortresses
of the land were held by the English, and most of the Scottish nobles
still refused to join the pretender. But Edward only sent north a small
force under the Earl of Pembroke, which made no head against the forces
of Bruce.
[Sidenote: =Ascendency of Piers Gaveston.=]
When Edward settled down in his kingship, the English nation found
itself confronted by a new problem--how to deal with a king who
altogether refused to trouble himself about the governance of the
realm. He referred all men who came to him to his "good brother Piers,"
and went about his pleasures without further concern. When, a few
months after his accession, he was to wed Isabel, the daughter of the
King of France, he went over-sea, leaving the regency in the hands of
the Gascon upstart, whom he created Earl of Cornwall, granting him the
old royal earldom that had been held by the descendants of Richard,
the brother of Henry III. He also gave him in marriage his niece, the
daughter of the Earl of Gloucester, and lavished upon him a number of
royal estates.
Baronage and people alike were moved to wrath by seeing the king hand
over the governance of the realm to his favourite. The proud nobles who
had been content to bend before Edward's father, would not for a moment
yield to a king who was but the creature of Gaveston. Troubles began
almost immediately on the young king's accession; he was besought,
in and out of Parliament, to dismiss the Gascon. He bowed before the
storm, and sent him out of England for the moment--but only to give
him higher honours by making him Lord Deputy of Ireland. When the king
recovered from his fright, Gaveston was recalled, and returned more
powerful and more arrogant than before (1309).
[Sidenote: =The Scottish war.=]
Meanwhile the war in Scotland was going very badly. Many of the nobles,
after long doubting, joined Bruce, because they saw that they were
likely to get little protection from the feeble king whom they had
hitherto served. Several important places fell into the insurgents'
hands, and it was universally felt that only a great expedition headed
by the king himself could stay Bruce's progress.
Edward, however, was enduring too much trouble at home to think of
reconquering Scotland. The barons were moving again, headed by three
personal enemies of Gaveston's, whom he is said to have mortally
offended by the nicknames he had bestowed on them. The first was the
king's cousin,[19] Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, a turbulent, ambitious
man, who covered a scheming love of power by an affectation of
patriotism and disinterestedness. The other two were Aymer de Valence,
Earl of Pembroke,[20] and Guy Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. Gaveston's
name for Lancaster was "The Actor," which, indeed, well hit off his
pretence of unreal virtue. Pembroke he called "Joseph the Jew," and
Warwick "The Black Dog of Arden."
[Sidenote: =The Lords Ordainers.=]
It was these three lords who in 1310 led an attack in Parliament on
the king and his favourite, and drew up a scheme for taking the direct
rule of the realm out of their hands. Following the precedent of the
Provisions of Oxford,[21] the Parliament named a committee of regency,
or body of ministers, composed of twenty-one members, who were called
the Lords Ordainers, and were to draw up a scheme for the reform of all
the abuses of the kingdom. The twenty-one comprised the Archbishop of
Canterbury and all the leading men of England, but Thomas of Lancaster
and his friends had the ascendency among them. The king complained that
he was treated like a lunatic, and deprived of the right that every
man owns, of being allowed to manage his own household. He resolved
by way of protest, to show that he could do something useful, and,
taking Gaveston with him, made an incursion into Scotland. Bruce was
cautious, and retired northward, burning the country behind him. The
king struggled on as far as the Forth, and then turned back without
having accomplished anything. On his return he was forced to sign a
promise to redress many administrative grievances which the Lords
Ordainers laid before him--to consent to banish Gaveston, choose all
his ministers with the counsel and consent of his baronage, disallow
all customs and taxes save such as Parliament should grant, and reform
the administration of justice. Edward signed everything readily, but
immediately departed into the north, bade Gaveston return to England
and join him, and published a repudiation of the new ordinances, as
forced on him by threats and violence (1311).
[Sidenote: =Murder of Gaveston.=]
This contumacy brought matters to a head. Lancaster and his friends
took arms and laid siege to Scarborough, where the favourite lay.
Gaveston surrendered on a promise that he should have a fair trial in
Parliament. But while he was being taken southward, the Earl of Warwick
came upon his keepers, drove them away, and took Piers out of their
hands. Without trial or form of justice, "The Black Dog of Arden" bade
his retainers behead the favourite by the wayside on Blacklow Hill
(May, 1312). Thomas of Lancaster approved by his presence this gross
and faithless violation of the terms on which Gaveston had surrendered
at Scarborough.
[Sidenote: =Progress of Bruce.=]
This outburst of lawless baronial vengeance removed Edward's favourite,
but did the realm no other good. The king was compelled to pardon
Gaveston's murderers, but he could not be forced to forget what they
had done, and even his slow and craven heart conceived projects of
revenge. But these had to be postponed for a time to the pressing
needs of the Scotch war. Bruce had taken Perth in 1312, Edinburgh
and Roxburgh fell to him in the following year, and he was besieging
Stirling, the last important stronghold still in English hands. Even
Edward was stirred: he bade all England arm, and vowed to march to the
relief of Stirling in the next spring. A great host mustered under the
royal banner, but Thomas of Lancaster factiously refused to appear, on
the plea that the ordinances of 1311 forbade the king to go out to war
without the consent of Parliament. This act alone is a sufficient proof
that Thomas was a mere self-seeking politician, and not the patriot
that he would fain have appeared.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF BANNOCKBURN
June 24{TH} 1314.]
[Sidenote: =Battle of Bannockburn.=]
King Edward, with an army that is rated at nearly 100,000 men by the
chronicler, pushed on to relieve Stirling, and met no opposition till
he reached the burn of Bannock, two miles south of that town. There he
found Bruce and his host of 40,000 men posted on a rising ground, with
the brook and a broad bog in his front. On their flanks the Scots had
protected themselves by digging many pits lightly covered with earth
and brushwood, so as to break the charge of the English horse. Edward
displayed all the marks of a bad general: instead of endeavouring to
use his superior numbers to turn or surround the enemy, he flung them
recklessly on the Scottish front. When his archers, who by themselves
might have settled the battle, had been driven away by the Scots horse,
he pushed his great array of mailed knights against the solid masses of
Bruce's infantry. After struggling through brook and bog, the English
came to a standstill before the steady line of spears. Charge after
charge was made, but the knights could not break through the sturdy
pikemen, and at last recoiled in disorder. At this moment a mass of
Scottish camp-followers came rushing over the hill on the left, and
were taken by the exhausted English for a new army. Edward's great
host broke up and fled, the king himself outstripping his followers,
and never halting till he reached Dunbar. The Earl of Gloucester, six
other barons, two hundred knights, and many thousand men of lower rank
were left upon the field. The Earls of Hereford and Angus, and seventy
knights were taken prisoners.
The fight of Bannockburn completely did away with the last chance of
the union of England and Scotland. The English garrisons surrendered,
and the Scots of the English party yielded themselves to Bruce, save
a few who, with the Earls of Athole and Buchan, took refuge south of
the border. For the future Bruce was undisputed king beyond the Tweed,
and, instead of acting upon the defensive, was able to push forward
and attack England. His ambition was completely satisfied, and his
long toils and wanderings ended in splendid success. His whole career,
however, was that of a hardy adventurer rather than that of a patriotic
king, and his triumph estranged two nations which had hitherto been
able to dwell together in amity, and plunged them for nearly three
centuries into bloody border wars. It was from the atrocities committed
by Englishman on Scot and Scot on Englishman during the fatal years
1306-14 that the long national quarrel drew its bitterness, and for all
this Bruce, who commenced his reign by treason, murder, and usurpation,
is largely responsible, Edward I. must take his full share of blame
for his hard hand and heart, but Bruce's ambition masquerading as
patriotism must bear as great a load of guilt.
[Sidenote: =Rule of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster.=]
The shame which King Edward brought home from the ignominious day
of Bannockburn, lowered him yet further in his subjects' eyes. The
Earl of Lancaster, who had avoided participating in the defeat by his
unpatriotic refusal to go forth with the king, was now able to take the
administration of affairs into his hands. He dismissed all Edward's
old servants, put him on an allowance of £10 a day for his household
expenses, and for some years was practically ruler of the realm.
[Sidenote: =War in Ireland.=]
Lancaster might have passed for an able man if he had not laid his
hand on the helm of the state; but he guided matters so badly that he
soon wrecked his own reputation both for ability and for patriotism
(1314-18). The generals of the Scottish king crossed the border and
ravaged the country as far as York and Preston, and at the same time
Edward Bruce, the brother of Robert, sailed over to Ireland with an
army and began to raise the native Irish against their rulers. The
great tribes of the O'Neils and the O'Connors joined him, in the hope
of completely expelling the English, and by their aid Edward Bruce was
crowned King of Ireland, and swept over the whole country from Antrim
to Kerry, burning the towns and castles of the English settlers. It is
from these unhappy years (1315-17) that we may date the weakening of
the royal authority in Ireland, and the restriction of English rule
to the eastern coast--"the Pale" about Dublin, Dundalk, and Wicklow.
When the war seemed over, and the victory of Edward Bruce certain,
the dissensions of the Irish ruined his cause. Lord Mortimer routed
Edward's allies the O'Connors at Athenree in 1317, and the King of
Ireland himself and his Scottish followers were cut to pieces at
Dundalk, a year later, by the Chief Justice, John de Birmingham. Dublin
and the Pale were thus saved, but little or no progress was made in
restoring the King of England's authority in the rest of the land.
[Sidenote: =Bruce invades England.--Edward recovers power.=]
Though victorious in Ireland, the English under Lancaster's rule were
unable to keep their own borders safe. Bruce took Berwick, ravaged
Durham, and cut the whole shire-levy of Yorkshire to pieces at Mytton
bridge. In despair, Lancaster asked for a truce, and obtained it
(1320). But the temporary cessation of the Scottish war only gave the
opportunity for the English to come to blows in civil strife. Thomas
of Lancaster had by this time made so many enemies, that the king was
able to gather together a party against him: though slow and idle,
Edward was unforgiving, and well remembered that he had Gaveston's
blood to avenge. He found his chief supporters in the two Despensers,
West-country barons, the son and grandson of that Despenser who had
been Simon de Montfort's Justiciar, and had fallen at Evesham. Taking
advantage of the times, Edward assembled an army under the plea that he
must chastise a baron named Baddlesmere, who had rudely excluded Queen
Isabella from Leeds Castle, in Kent, when she wished to enter. Having
taken Leeds and hung its garrison, the king with a most unexpected
show of energy suddenly turned on Lancaster. Earl Thomas called out
his friends, and the Earl of Hereford, Lord Mortimer, and many of the
barons of the Welsh Marches rose in his favour. He was forced, however,
to fly north when the king pursued him, and had made his way as far as
Boroughbridge, in Yorkshire, when he found himself intercepted by the
shire-levies of the north, headed by Harclay, the Governor of Carlisle.
A battle followed, in which Hereford was slain and Lancaster taken
prisoner.
[Sidenote: =Vengeance of Edward. 1322.=]
The king was now able to wreak his long-delayed vengeance for
Gaveston's murder. He sent Earl Thomas to the block, and hung or
beheaded eight barons and thirty knights of his party. Lord Mortimer
and the rest were stripped of their lands and banished. These wholesale
executions and confiscations not only provoked the baronage, but caused
the nation to look on Earl Thomas as a martyr, though he was in fact
nothing better than a selfish and turbulent adventurer.
[Sidenote: =Rule of the Despensers, 1322-26.=]
Edward, having taken his revenge, subsided into his former listlessness
and sloth, handing over the whole conduct of affairs to his new
ministers, the two Despensers. Father and son alike were unwise,
greedy, and arrogant; they used the king's name for their own ends,
and soon made themselves as well hated as Gaveston had been ten years
before. Yet for four years they maintained themselves in power, even
after they had advised the king to take the necessary but unpopular
step of acknowledging Bruce as King of Scotland, and concluding a truce
for thirteen years with him.
[Sidenote: =Queen Isabella and Mortimer.--Fall of the Despensers.=]
The slothful Edward and the arrogant Despensers soon tired out the
patience of England, and they fell before the first blow levelled
against them. The blow came from an unexpected quarter. Edward's
wife, Isabella of France, was visiting the court of her brother,
Charles IV., on a diplomatic mission concerning some frontier feuds
in Guienne. At Paris she met and became desperately enamoured of the
exiled Marcher-baron, Roger Mortimer. He drew her into a conspiracy
against her husband; by his advice she induced her young son Edward,
the heir of England, to cross over and join her. When the boy was
safely in her hands, she sent to King Edward to bid him dismiss the
Despensers, because they had wronged and insulted her. When he refused,
she and Mortimer gathered a force of Flemish mercenaries and crossed
to England. They had already enlisted the support of the kinsmen and
friends of Lancaster, Hereford, Baddlesmere, and the other barons who
had been slain in 1322. On landing in Suffolk, Isabella was at once
joined by them, and found herself at the head of a large army. Edward
and his unpopular ministers fled towards Wales; but the elder Despenser
was caught at Bristol and promptly hanged. His son Hugh and the king
were captured three weeks later; the former was executed, while his
master was taken under guard to London (November, 1326).
[Sidenote: =Edward deposed.--His son proclaimed king.=]
The queen then summoned a Parliament in the name of her son, Prince
Edward. Articles were placed before it, accusing the king of breaking
his coronation oath, of wilfully neglecting the right governance of the
land, of promoting unworthy favourites, of losing Scotland and Ireland,
and of slaying his enemies without just cause or a fair trial. The
Parliament pronounced him unfit to reign, deposed him, and elected his
young son to fill his throne in his stead.
[Sidenote: =Death of Edward.=]
Edward was constrained by force to resign his crown, and at once
thrown into prison. He was first consigned to the charge of Henry of
Lancaster, the brother of Earl Thomas; but Henry kept him safely, and
there were those who did not desire his safety. Presently the queen and
Mortimer took him from Lancaster's hands and removed him to Berkeley
Castle. There he was treated with gross neglect and cruelty, in the
deliberate design of ending his life; but when his constitution proved
strong enough to resist all privations, his keepers secretly put him to
death (September 21, 1327).
Thus ended the unhappy son of Edward I., the victim of an unfaithful
wife, and a knot of barons bent on revenging an old blood-feud. That he
deserved his fate it would be hard to say, but that he owed it entirely
to his own unwise choice of favourites it is impossible to deny.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] Son of Edward I.'s brother Edmund, Earl of Lancaster.
[20] A grandson of one of Henry III.'s foreign relatives.
[21] See p. 140.