Chapter XVIII: Part 18

From Scone, the crown, royal stone, and robes had been carried off to England; and the Earl of Fife, who, since the days of Macduff, had had the right of placing the King upon his throne, was in the hands of the English: but the Bishop of Glasgow provided rich raiment; a little circlet of gold was borrowed of an English goldsmith; and Isabel, Countess of Buchan, the sister of the Earl of Fife, rode to Scone, bringing her husband’s war-horses, and herself enthroned King Robert. The coronation took place on the Feast of the Annunciation, 1306, and thus began a dynasty whose fate was remarkably similar to the sacrilege and murder in which their rise was founded. Never was royal line of whom it could so truly be said, that the sword never departed from them, and there was not an old man in their house for ever. High endowments and honest purposes could not redeem them, and Scotland never rested nor was purified from deadly hate and the shedding of innocent blood till the last of them was dying, a childless exile, and her sceptre was in the hands of that power against which Bruce arose.

The news of Brace’s coronation filled Edward I. with rage. Fourteen years’ work, at the cost of honor, mercy, and the love of his people, all was undone, and the spirit of independence still uncrushed.

Edward regarded Bruce as so sacrilegious a traitor, that a war with him was almost sacred; he swore to revenge Red Comyn’s death, and prepared for the war in the most solemn manner. His son Edward was in his 22d year, and had not yet been knighted, and the King convoked all the young nobles to share in the solemnity.

On Whitsun-eve three hundred tents were erected in the Temple gardens, and in each was a young esquire of noble blood, clad in white linen and scarlet cloth, from the King’s own wardrobe. Around the circular church of the Temple they watched their armor, and in the early morning the Prince received knighthood in private from the hands of his father, who had become too unwell to encounter the whole fatigue of the day. The Prince conferred the order on his companions, and a magnificent banquet took place in Westminster Hall, where the old King himself presided. In the midst a golden net was brought in containing two swans, the emblems of constancy and truth; and laying his hand on these, the King vowed that he would never sleep two nights in the same place till he should have chastised the Scots, and that he then would embark for Palestine, and die in the holy war. All the young knights made the same vow; and Edward made them swear that, if he should die in the course of the war, they would keep his body above ground till the conquest should be completed.

In the meantime, Clement V. had visited Bruce’s crime with excommunication; and though the primate, Lamberton, would not receive the letters bearing the sentence, it was less easy to be inattentive to the enormous force that Edward I. had despatched under his viceroy, Aymar de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, while he followed with mind only bent on revenge.

Bruce ravaged Galloway, and marching on Perth, where De Valence was in garrison, challenged him to come out to battle. Aymar answered that it was too late in the day, and he must wait till morning; and the Scots settled themselves in the wood of Methven, where they were cooking their suppers, when Valence ungenerously took them by surprise, falling on them with a far superior force. Robert was on the alert, and killed Aymar’s horse; but three times he was himself unhorsed: and once Philippe Mowbray was crying out that he had the new-made King, when Christopher Seton came to the rescue, and killed the Englishman. Robert, with about five hundred men, retreated safely into the rugged country of Athol; but he lost many of his best friends, who were slain or made prisoners, the latter being for the most part hung as rebels, except his sister’s son, Thomas Randolph, who made his peace by renouncing his uncle.

King Edward had advanced as far as Carlisle. But he was now in his 67th year, and though his blue eye was not dim, nor his tall form bent, age was beginning to tell on him, and he was detained by sickness. His armies advanced, and while their cruelties shocked even his stern heart, he set them a fatal example by the unsparing manner in which he ordered the execution of all whom he considered as accomplices in rebellion.

The King and his small band of followers lived a wild, outlaw life, in the hills, hunting and fishing; and his English wife, Joan de Valence, with his two sisters, Mary and Christian, and the Countess of Buchan, came, under the escort of young Nigel Bruce, to join them. A few weeks ensued in the wilds of Bredalbane which had all the grace of “As You Like It.” The Queen and ladies were lodged in bowers of the branches of trees, slept on the skins of deer and roe, and the King and his young knights hunted, fished, or gathered the cranberry or the whortleberry for their food; while the French courtliness of James Douglas, and the gracious beauty of young Nigel, threw a romance over the whole of the sufferings so faithfully and affectionately endured.

But advancing autumn forced them to think of providing shelter, and as they advanced toward the Tay, they came into the country of John Macdougal, Lord of Lorn, a son-in-law of the Red Comyn, and therefore at deadly feud with the Bruces. He collected his Highland vassals, and set upon the little band in a narrow pass between a lake and a precipice, where they could not use their horses: and the Highlanders did dreadful execution with their Lochaber axes; James Douglas was wounded, and so many of the horses destroyed, that Bruce ordered a retreat, and set himself to cover it, almost alone. Lorn himself was reminded of the heroes of Highland romance, as he saw the knightly figure riding calmly along the shore of the lake, guarding his flying army by the might of his presence, and the Archdeacon of Aberdeen found a simile for him in the romances of Alexander; but three men named M’Androsser, a father and two sons, all of great strength, sprang forward, vowing to slay the champion, or make him prisoner. One seized his rein, and at the same moment Bruce’s sword sheared off the detaining hand, but not before the other brother had grasped his leg to hurl him from the saddle. With a touch of the spur the horse leaped forward, and as the man fell, his head was cleft by the King’s sword. The grapple with the father was more severe; he grasped the King’s mantle, and when Bruce dashed out his brains with his mace, the death-clutch was so fast, that Bruce was forced to undo the brooch at his throat to free himself from the dead man. The brooch was brought as a trophy to Lorn, whose party could not help breaking out into expressions of admiration, which began to anger him.

“It seems to give you pleasure,” he said, “to see such havoc made among us.” “Not so,” answered one; “but be he friend or foe who achieves high deeds of knighthood, men should do faithful witness to his valor.”

When the King had safely conducted his friends from this danger, he decided that the ladies should be placed in Kildrummie Castle, in Mar, under the keeping of young Nigel, while his followers dispersed for the winter, and he would shelter in the Hebrides. It was a sad and long parting, for Kildrummie Castle was soon taken, and Edward sternly condemned Nigel to be hung, in spite of his youth and innocence; and Christopher Seton, the King’s dearest friend, was soon after taken, and shared the same fate. The bishops were carried in chains to England, and Queen Joan also was sent home as a prisoner with her little daughter Marjory. Mary Bruce and Isabel of Buchan were still more harshly treated, being each shut up in an open cage of latticed wood, exposed to the weather and to the public gaze, the one at Berwick, the other at Roxburgh Castle. Christian had the better fate of being placed in a convent.

In the meantime, Bruce and his few friends had wandered on to the banks of Loch Lomond, where they could only find one leaky boat, unable to hold more than three. Bruce, Douglas, and one other were the first to cross, and the third then rowed back for another freight, while throughout this tedious waiting the King made his friends forget their troubles by reciting poems and tales of chivalry. He spent part of the winter in Kentire, and the rest at the little island of Rachrin, so entirely lost to the knowledge of his enemies, that derisive proclamation was made for Robert Bruce, lost, stolen, or strayed. The Pope’s legate solemnly excommunicated him at Carlisle, with bell, book, and candle; and Annandale was given to the Earl of Hereford, and Carrick to Henry Percy, whilst the executions of his relatives and adherents were both savage and cruel.

It was while depressed by such dreadful tidings that Bruce, as he lay on his bed at Rachrin, drew counsel and encouragement from the persevering spider, resolved to stake his fortunes on another cast, and, if unsuccessful, to die as a warrior in the Holy Land. The spring of 1307 was coming on, and he had found a friend in Christina, the Lady of the Isles, who furnished him with some vessels, in which Douglas descended upon the Isle of Arran, and surprised Brodick Castle, which was full of supplies.

Bruce was not long in following them, and, landing secretly, blew his bugle horn.

“The King!” cried James Douglas; “I know his manner of blowing!”

“The King!” cried Robert Boyd; “let us make speed to join him!”.

Bruce had brought with him thirty-three galleys, and, meditating a landing in his own county of Carrick, just opposite, he sent a trusty friend, named Cuthbert, to feel his way; agreeing that, if he found the people favorably disposed, he should light a fire as a signal on Turnberry Head. The flame burst out at night, and Bruce and his little band embarked; but, on landing, he found no welcome on the shore, only Cuthbert, who knelt in dismay to assure the King that he knew not what hand had kindled the blaze; it was none of his, for the people were terror-stricken, Turnberry Castle was full of English, and he feared that it was the work of treachery. Nor has that strange beacon ever been accounted for; it is still believed to have been lit by no mortal hand, and the spot where it shone forth is called the Bogle’s Brae. Whether meteor or watch-fire, it lit the way to Robert Bruce’s throne.

He took counsel whether to return, or not; but his fiery brother, Edward, vowed that, for his part, he would never return to the sea, but would seek his adventures by land, and Bruce decided on being led by his strange destiny. Percy’s horses and men were quartered in the villages round, and falling on them by surprise, he made a rich booty, and drove the remainder to take refuge in the castle.

A lady of Bruce’s kindred brought him forty men and a supply of money and provisions, but, on the other hand, she told him the sad news of the loss of Kildrummie and the death of Nigel; and nearly at the same time, his two youngest brothers, who had been to collect forces in Ireland, were met as they landed by the Macdowalls of Galloway, routed, wounded, and made prisoners. They were taken to King Edward at Carlisle, and at once hanged without mercy. Bruce vowed a deadly vengeance, but he was again put to dreadful straits. He had four hundred men with him at Ammock, in Ayrshire, when Aymar de Valence and John of Lorn pursued him with eight hundred Highlanders and men-at-arms, setting on his traces a bloodhound, once a favorite of his own, and whose instinct they basely employed against his master.

Bruce, hoping to confuse them, divided his followers into three bands, appointing them a place of meeting; but the hound was not to be thus baffled, and followed up his master’s footsteps. Again the royal party broke up, the King keeping with him only his foster-brother; but again the hound singled out his traces, and followed him closely. Lorn sent on five of his fleetest Highlanders to outstrip the dog, believing them able to cope with the two whose footmarks he saw. Bruce soon saw them dashing alter him, and asked his foster-brother, “What aid wilt them make?”

“The best I can,” he said; and the King undertook to deal with three, leaving the other two to his foster-brother; but he had to turn aside from his own combat to rescue his companion, and four out of the five fell by his hand; yet he thanked his foster-brother for his aid in the encounter. The baying of the hound came near enough to be heard, revealing why the enemy had so well distinguished his tread: and Bruce, who had been sitting under a tree, spent with fatigue, sprang up, exclaiming that he had heard that to wade a bow-shot through a stream would make any dog lose scent, and he would put it to proof by walking down the little stream that crossed the wood. This device succeeded, the running water effaced the scent, the hound was at fault, and Lorn gave up the attempt.

Still the hunted pair were in evil case; they had lost their way, and were spent with fatigue, and they could not extricate themselves from the forest. By and by they met three wild, vagabond-looking men coming with swords and axes, and one with a sheep thrown over his shoulders. The King accosted them, and asked whither they were bound. They said they sought Robert Bruce, since, wherever he was, there would be fighting.

“Come with me,” he said; “I will take you to him.”

At this they changed countenance, so that he suspected them, and insisted that they should walk on before him in front, without the two parties mingling together. At nightfall they came to an empty shed, where they killed the sheep; but Bruce, still on his guard, chose to have a separate fire, and to eat and sleep apart beside it, himself and his foster-brother taking turns to watch. The foster-brother, heavy and exhausted, dropped off to sleep on his watch, and almost at the same moment the three robbers fell upon them. Bruce, who slept lightly, was on the alert in a moment, and slew the whole three, but not in time to save his foster-brother, who died under a blow from the marauders. The King then went mournfully on his way to the place of rendezvous, and by and by came to a farm, where he was welcomed by a loyal goodwife, who declared that she wished well to all travellers for the sake of one--King Robert. Here he was joined by one hundred and fifty men, with his brother Edward, and James Douglas; and the first remedy thought of for all their fatigues was to fall on their pursuers, who were carousing in the villages. Attacking them suddenly, they inflicted far more injury than had been suffered through this day of pursuit.

Bruce was gathering men so fast, that he ventured to give battle to Aymar de Valence at London Hill, and defeated him chiefly by using the long spears of the Scottish infantry against the horse of the English. Aymar went to explain the state of affairs to King Edward at Carlisle. Such tidings lashed the old monarch to more vehement action; he prepared to set forth at once against the enemy; but it was not to be. Wars were over with him forever. The sudden death of his daughter, Joan, strongly affected him, and at only one day’s march from Carlisle he became so ill, that he was forced to rest at Burgh on the Sands, where he speedily declined. His last injunctions to his son were, to be kind to his little brothers, and to maintain three hundred knights for three years in the Holy Land. The report went, that he further desired that his flesh might be boiled off his bones, and these wrapped in a bull’s hide to serve as a standard to the army; but Edward’s hatred never was so mad as this would have been, and there is no reason to believe in so absurd a story.

There could perhaps be found no more appropriate monument than that in Westminster Abbey, contrasting, as it does, its stern simplicity with the gorgeous grace of his father’s inlaid shrine, and typifying well the whole story of the fallen though still devout crusader--the dark-gray slab of Purbeck marble, with the inscription:

Edwardus Primus. Malleus Scotorum, 1308. Pactum Serva.
Edward the First. The Hammer of the Scots. Keep covenants.

CAMEO XXXVII. THE VICTIM OF BLACKLOW HILL.

_King of England_.
1307. Edward II.

_King of Scotland_.
1306. Robert I.

_King of France_.
1385. Philippe IV.

_Emperor of Germany_.
1308. Henry VII.

_Pope_.
1305. Clement V.

“The foolishness of the people” is a title that might be given to many a son of a wise father. The very energy and prudence of the parent, especially when employed on ambitious or worldly objects, seems to cause distaste, and even opposition, in the youth on whom his father’s pursuits have been prematurely forced. Seeing the evil, and weary of the good, it often requires a strong sense of duty to prevent him from flying to the contrary extreme, or from becoming wayward, indifferent, and dissipated.

This has been the history of many an heir-apparent, and of none more decidedly than of Edward of Carnarvon. The Plantagenet weakness, instead of the stern strength of the house of Anjou, had descended to him; and though he had what Fuller calls “a handsome man-case,” his fair and beautiful face was devoid of the resolute and fiery expression of his father, and showed somewhat of the inanity of regular features, without a spirit to illuminate them. Gentle, fond of music, dancing, and every kind of sport, he had little turn for state affairs; and like his grandfather, Henry III., but with more constancy, he clung to any one who had been able to gain his affections, and had neither will nor judgment save that of the friend who had won his heart.

His first friend--and it was a friendship till death--was Piers Gaveston, the son of a knight of Guienne. Piers was a few years older than the Prince, and so graceful, handsome, ready of tongue, and complete in every courtly accomplishment, that Edward I. highly approved of him as his son’s companion in early boyhood; and Piers shared in the education of the young Prince of Wales and of his favorite sister, Elizabeth. Edward I. was a fond father, and granted his son’s friend various distinguished marks of favor, among others the wardship of Roger, the son and heir of the deceased Edmund Mortimer, warden of the Marches of Wales. Whatever were the intentions of Gaveston, Roger Mortimer did little credit to his education. The guardian had a license to use his ward’s property like his own till his majority, in order that he might levy the retainers for the King’s service, and he obtained a handsome gratuity from the relatives of the lady to whom he gave the youth in marriage, and this, probably, was the extent of the obligations to which Gaveston considered himself as bound.

Both he and his Prince were strongly sensitive to all that was tasteful and beautiful; they were profuse in their expenditure in dress, in ornament, and in all kinds of elegances, and delighted in magnificent entertainments. They gave one in the Tower of London to the princesses, on which occasion an immense expenditure was incurred, when the Prince of Wales was only fifteen; and his presents were always on the grandest scale to his sisters, who seem to have loved him as sisters love an only brother.

By and by, however, generosity became profusion, and love of pleasure ran into dissipation. Grave men grew uneasy at the idle levity of the Prince, and were seriously offended by the gibes and jests in which the tongue of Gaveston abounded, and at which he was always ready to laugh. In 1305, the Prince made application to Walter Langley, Bishop of Litchfield, the King’s treasurer, to supply him with money, but was refused, and spoke improperly in his anger. It is even said that he joined Gaveston in the wild frolic of breaking into Langley’s park, and stealing his deer. At any rate, at Midhurst, on the 13th of June, the Bishop seriously reproved him for his idle life and love of low company; and the Prince replied with such angry words, that the King, in extreme displeasure, sent him in a sort of captivity to Windsor Castle, with only two servants.

All his sisters rose up to take their brother’s part, and assure him of their sympathy. The eager, high-spirited Joan, Countess of Gloucester, sent him her seal, that he might procure whatever he pleased at her cost; and Elizabeth, who was married to Humphrey de Bohun, the great Earl of Hereford, wrote a letter of warm indignation, to which he replied by begging her not to believe anything, save that his father was acting quite rightly by him; but a few weeks after, he wrote to beg her to intercede that his “two valets,” Gilbert de Clare and Perot de Gaveston, “might be restored to him, as they would alleviate much of his anguish.” He addressed a letter with the like petition to his stepmother, Queen Margaret, and continued to evince his submission by refusing his sister Mary’s invitations to visit her at her convent at Ambresbury. At the meeting of parliament, Edward met his father again, and received his forgiveness. All went well for some time, and he gracefully played his part in the pageantry of his knighthood and the vow of the Swans.

Gaveston still continued about his person, and accompanied him to the north of England. At the parliament of Carlisle, in 1307, the Prince besought his father to grant his friend the earldom of Cornwall, the richest appanage in the kingdom, just now vacant by the death of his cousin, Edmund d’Almaine, son of the King of the Romans. Whether this presumptuous request opened the King’s eyes to the inordinate power that Gaveston exercised over his son, or whether he was exasperated against him by the complaints of the nobles, his reply was, to decree that, after a tournament fixed for the 9th of April, Gaveston must quit the kingdom forever; and he further required an oath from both the friends, that they would never meet, again, even after his death. Oaths were lightly taken in those days, and neither of the gay youths was likely to resist the will of the stern old monarch; so the pledge was taken, and the Prince of Wales remained lonely and dispirited, while Piers hovered on the outskirts of the English dominions, watching for tidings that could hardly be long in coming.

So much did Edward I. dread his influence, that, on his deathbed, he obliged his son to renew his abjuration of Gaveston’s company, and laid him under his paternal malediction should he attempt to recall him. It does not appear that Gaveston waited for a summons. He hurried to present himself before his royal friend, who had, in pursuance of his father’s orders, advanced as far as Cumnock, in Ayrshire.

Both had bitterly to rue their broken faith, and heavily did the father’s curse weigh upon them; but at first there was nothing but transport in their meeting. The merry Piers renewed his jests and gayeties; he set himself to devise frolics and pageantries for his young master, and speedily persuaded him to cease from the toils of war in dreary Scotland, and turn his face homeward to the more congenial delights of his coronation, and his marriage with the fairest maiden in Europe. To have made peace with Bruce because the war was an unjust aggression, would have been noble; but it was base neither to fight nor to treat, and to leave unsupported the brave men who held castles in his name in the heart of the enemy’s country. But Edward was only twenty-two, Gaveston little older, and sport was their thought, instead of honor or principle. Piers even mocked at the last commands of the great Edward, and not only persuaded the new King to let the funeral take place without waiting for the conquest of Scotland, but to bestow on him even the bequest set apart for the maintenance of the knights in Palestine. At Dumfries, on his first arrival, the coveted earldom of Cornwall was granted to him; and, on his return, he was married to the King’s niece, Margaret de Clare, daughter to Joan of Acre. He held his head higher than ever, and showed great discourtesy to the nobility. He had announced a tournament at Wallingford in honor of his wedding, and hearing that a party of knights were coming to the assistance of the barons who had accepted his encounter, he sallied out privately with his followers, and attacked and dispersed the allies, so as to have the advantage in his own hands in the melée. Such a dishonorable trick was never forgotten, though probably the root was chiefly vanity, which seems to have been the origin of all his crimes, and of his ruin.

The chancellor and all the late King’s tried ministers were displaced, and some, among whom was the good Bishop of Litchfield, were imprisoned for two years. Gaveston, without any regular appointment, took the great seal into his own keeping, and set it to charters which he filled up after his fancy. In the meantime, the King set off for France, to celebrate his marriage with Isabel, the daughter of Philippe le Bel, the princess for whose sake the Flemish maiden was pining to death in captivity. The seal of this most wretched of unions was, that Philippe took this opportunity of persuading the gentle, reluctant Edward II, to withdraw his protection from the Templars in his dominions, and give them up to the horrible cruelty and rapacity of their exterminator. Isabel’s dowry was furnished from their spoils. The wedding took place on St. Paul’s Day, 1308, in the presence of four kings and queens, and the festivities lasted a fortnight; after which the young bride and bridegroom set off on their return to Dover, where Edward’s favorite sister, Elizabeth, was already come to greet the little Queen, a beautiful girl of thirteen, proud, high-spirited, and exacting, very unwilling to be treated as a child. Her two uncles came with her, and a splendid train of nobles; and two days after their landing, Gaveston arrived at Dover, when, at first sight of him, Edward rushed into his arms, calling him brother, and disregarding every one else. Almost at the same time the King gave his favorite the whole of the rich jewelry and other gifts which had been bestowed on him by his father-in-law, Philippe le Bel; and this was regarded as a great affront by the young Queen and her uncles. Gaveston had a childish complaint of his own to make--men would not call him by his new title; and presently a proclamation came out, rendering it a crime to speak of him as Piers, Piers Gaveston, or as anything but the Earl of Cornwall.

It was the more resented because he was not respectful with other men’s titles, and amused the King with nicknames for the nobles. Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, the son of Edmund Crouchback, was “the old hog” and the “stage-player;” pale, dark, Provençal Aymar de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, he called “Joseph the Jew;” the fierce Guy, Earl of Warwick, “the black dog of Ardennes.” The stout Earl swore that he should find that the dog could show his teeth; and when Gaveston announced a tournament for the 18th of February at Feversham, no one chose to attend it, whereupon he jeered at them as cowards.

The King issued writs summoning his nobles to meet for his coronation on the 25th of February, but they took the opportunity of insisting that Gaveston should be dismissed from favor. Edward evasively answered that he would attend to their wishes at the meeting of parliament, and they were obliged to be content for the present; but they were exceedingly angry that, at the coronation, Piers appeared more splendidly and richly attired than the King himself, and bearing on a cushion the crown of St. Edward, while the Earl of Lancaster carried curtana, the sword of mercy, and his brother Henry the rod with the dove. The Bishop of Winchester performed the ceremony, Archbishop Winchelsea not having returned from his exile; and the King and Queen made magnificent offerings: the King’s being first, a figure of a king in gold, holding a ring; the second, of a pilgrim given the ring; intended to commemorate the vision in which St. Edward received the coronation-ring from St. John the Evangelist.

Gaveston arranged the whole ceremony; but as his own display was his chief thought, he managed to affront every one, and more especially the young Queen and her uncles, so that Isabel wrote a letter to her father full of complaints of her new lord and his favorite, and Philippe entered into correspondence with the discontented nobility. In the tournaments in honor of the coronation, Piers came off victorious over the Earls of Lancaster, Hereford, Pembroke, and Warrenne, and this mortification greatly added to their dislike. At the meeting of parliament, the Barons were so determined against the favorite, that finally Edward was obliged to yield, and to swear to keep him out of the kingdom; though, to soften the sentence, he gave him the manors of High Peak and Cockermouth, and made him governor of Ireland, bestowing on him, as a parting token, all the young Queen’s gifts to himself--rings, chains, and brooches; another great vexation to Isabel. He was obliged, at the same time, to grant forty other articles, giving greater security to the people.

Gaveston made a better governor of Ireland than could have been expected, repressed several incursions of the wild Irish, and repaired the castles on the borders of the English pale; but his haughty deportment greatly affronted the Irish barons of English blood, and they were greatly discontented with his rule.

The King was, in the meantime, doing his utmost to procure the recall of the beloved Earl. He wrote to the Pope to obtain absolution from his oath, and to the King of France to entreat him to relax his hostility; and he strove to gain his nobles over one by one, granting offices to Lancaster, and making concessions to all the rest. Philippe le Bel made no answer; Clement V. sent exhortations to him to live in harmony with his subjects, but at last absolved Gaveston, on condition that he should demean himself properly, and submit his differences with the Barons to the judgment of the Church.

Gaveston hurried home on the instant; his master flew to meet him, and received him at Chester with raptures of affection. Thence Edward sent explanations to the sheriffs of each county, saying, that Gaveston having been unjustly and violently banished, it was his duty to recall him, to have his conduct examined into according to the laws. The Barons, on the other hand, put forth other declarations, persuading the people that the King having violated one of the oaths, he evidently meant to break the other forty, which regarded their personal liberties.

Gaveston did nothing to mitigate the general aversion. He had not learnt wisdom by his first fall, and though the clergy and commons meeting at Stamford granted a twenty-fifth of the year’s produce to the King, and consented to his remaining so long as he should demean himself properly, he soon disgusted them also. He wore the crown-jewels openly, and affected greater contempt than ever for the Barons, till it became popularly said that there were two Kings, the real one a mere subject to the false. The young Queen wrote piteous complaints to her father of her husband’s neglect; and the Countess of Cornwall had still greater wrongs from Gaveston to complain of to her brother, the Earl of Gloucester. Dances, sports, and gayeties were the occupation of the court, heedless of the storm that was preparing. The Barons, jealous, alarmed, and irritated, looked on in displeasure, and on the All-Saints’ Day of 1310, after high mass at St. Paul’s, the bold-spirited Archbishop Winchelsea, in his pontifical robes, standing on the step of the altar, made a discourse to the Earls of Lancaster, Lincoln, Pembroke, Hereford, and eight other persons, after which he bound them by an oath to unite to deliver the kingdom from the exactions of the favorite, and pronounced sentence of excommunication against any who should reveal any part of their confederation before the time.

The Earl of Lincoln, the last of the Lacys, shortly after fell sick, and made what he thought a death-bed exhortation to the Earl of Lancaster, who had married his only daughter, not to abandon England to the King and the Pope, but, like the former barons, to resist all infractions of their privileges.

This Earl of Lancaster was the son of Edmund Crouchback and of Blanche of Artois, mother of the Queen of France. He was a fine-looking man, devout and gracious, and much beloved by the people, who called him the Gentle Count; but Gaveston’s nickname for him of the “stage-player” may not have been unmerited, for he seems to have been over-greedy of popular applause and influence, and to have had much personal ambition; and it does not seem certain, though Gaveston might be vain, and his master weak and foolish, that Lancaster and his friends did not exaggerate their faults, and excite the malevolence of a nation never tolerant either of royal favorites or of an expensive court. Pembroke was Aymar de Valence, son of one of the foreign brothers who had been the bane of Henry III.; but now, becoming a thorough Englishman, he bore the like malice to the unfortunate Gascon who held the same post as his own father had done. Hereford, though husband to the King’s favorite sister Elizabeth, was true to the stout old Bohun, his father, who had sworn to Edward I. that he would neither go nor hang. Two poor butterflies, such as Edward II. and Gaveston, could have done little injury to the realm, but the fierce warriors were resolved to crush them, impatient of the calls upon their purses made needful by their extravagance.

A tournament had been announced at Kennington, and preparations were made; but Gaveston’s jousts were not popular. None of the Barons accepted the invitation, and in the night the lists and scaffolding were secretly carried away. This mortification was ominous, but Edward’s funds were so low that he could not avoid summoning a parliament to meet at Westminster; and at their meeting the nobles again resorted to the device of Montfort at the Mad Parliament. They brought their armed followers, and forced the King to consent to the appointment of a committee of ordainers, who made him declare that this measure proceeded of his own free will, and was not to prejudice the rights of the Crown; but that their office would expire of itself on the ensuing Michaelmas-Day. So strangely and inconsistently did they try to bring about their own ends without infringing on the constitution.

Gaveston had either previously hidden himself, or was driven away by the ordainers; but the King, anxious to escape from their surveillance, proclaimed an expedition to Scotland, and summoned his vassals to meet him at York. Hardly any noble came except Gaveston, and they made an ineffectual inroad into Scotland together, after which Gaveston shut himself up in Bamborough Castle, while the King went to London to receive the decision of the ordainers. The foremost was, of course, the banishment of Gaveston; and he went, but only again to appear, before two months were past, in the company of the King, at York.

Lancaster and his friends now look up arms and marched northward. Edward and his court had proceeded to Newcastle, but no army was with them; and on the report of the advance of the enemy the King fled to Tynemouth, and embarked in a little boat with his friend, leaving behind him his wife, discourteously perhaps, but hardly cruelly, for Isabel was the niece of Lancaster, and probably would have been in more danger from a sea-voyage in a rude vessel, than from the rebel lords. She was, however, greatly offended, and was far more inclined to her uncle, who wrote her an affectionate letter, than to her regardless husband.

Edward and Piers landed at Scarborough, where the King was obliged to leave his friend for security, while he went on to raise his standard at York. Few obeyed the summons, and Pembroke hastened to besiege Scarborough. It was impossible to hold out, and Gaveston surrendered, Pembroke and Henry Percy binding themselves for his safety to the King, under forfeiture of life and limb. Gaveston was to be confined in his own castle of Wallingford, and the Earl proceeded to escort him thither. But at Dedington Pembroke left the party to visit his wife, who was in the neighborhood, and, on rising in the morning, Gaveston beheld the guard changed. They bore the badge of Warwick, and the grim black dog of Ardennes rode exulting at their head. The unhappy man was set upon a mule, and carried to Warwick Castle, where Lancaster, Hereford, and Surrey, were met to decide his fate in the noble pile newly raised by Earl Guy, to whom the loftiest tower owes its name.

They set Piers before them, and gave him a mock trial. At first there was a reluctance to shed blood, but a voice exclaimed, “Let the fox go, and you will have to hunt him again.” And it was resolved that, in defiance of law and of their own honor, Piers Gaveston should die.

He flung himself on his knees before Lancaster, and implored mercy; but in vain he called him “Gentle Count.” “Old hog” rankled in the mind of the Earl, who, with his two confederates, rode-forth to Blacklow Hill, a knoll between Warwick and Coventry, and there, beneath the clump of ragged pine-trees, they sternly and ruthlessly looked on while, on June 19th, 1312, the head of the unfortunate young Gaveston was struck off, a victim to his own vanity and the inordinate affection of his master.

Pembroke, regretting either his carelessness or his treachery, when he saw the dreadful consequences, went to the King, and satisfied him of his innocence. Poor Edward was at first wild with grief and rage, but his efforts to punish the murderers were fruitless; and gradually his wrath cooled enough to listen to the mediation of the Pope and King of France, and he consented to grant the Barons a pardon. They wanted to force him, for their own justification, to declare Gaveston a traitor; but weak as Edward was, his affection could not be overcome. He could forgive the murderers, but he could not denounce the memory of the murdered friend of his youth. And the Barons were forced to content themselves with receiving a free pardon after they had come to profess their penitence on their knees before the King enthroned in Westminster Hall.

Gaveston had been buried by some friars at Oxford; but, twelve years after, Edward showed how enduring his love had been, by transporting the corpse to the church he had newly built at Langley, and placing with his own hands two palls of gold on the tomb.

CAMEO XXXVIII. BANNOCKBURN. (1307-1313.)

_King of England_.
1307. Edward II.

_King of Scotland_.
1306. Robert I.

_King of France_.
1285. Philippe IV.

_Emperor of Germany_.
1308. Henry VII.

_Pope_.
1305. Clement VI.

While the son of the Hammer of the Scots wasted his manhood in silken ease, the brave though savage patriots of the North were foot by foot winning back their native soil.

Lord Clifford had posted an English garrison in Douglas Castle, and reigned over Douglasdale, which had been granted to him by Edward I. on the forfeiture of Baron William. It sorely grieved the spirit of James Douglas to see his inheritance held by the stranger, and, with Bruce’s permission, he sought his own valley in disguise, revealing himself only to an old servant, named Thomas Dickson, who burst into tears at the first sight of his young lord, and gave him shelter in his cottage.

Here Douglas lay concealed, while Dickson conducted to him, one by one, his trusty vassals, and measures were concerted with total disregard to the sacred holiday. Once, all Passion-tide would have been peaceful for the sake of the Truce of God; but the wrongs of the Scots had blotted out all the gentler influences that soften war, and in their eyes justified treachery and sacrilege. On the Palm-Sunday of 1307, when the English troops would come forth in procession to the Church of St. Bride, carrying willow boughs in memory of the palm-branches at Jerusalem, the adherents of Douglas intended to attack and beset them on all sides, and Douglas, by way of encouragement, made a grant to Dickson of the lands of Hisleside. Dickson and the other secret friends of the Scots mingled in the procession, with their arms concealed, and entered the church with the English, and no sooner had they disappeared within the low doorway, than the loud slogan of “Douglas! Douglas!” was heard without. Dickson drew his sword and ran upon the English, but the signal had been given too soon, and he was overthrown and slain before Sir James came up. The English bravely defended the chancel, but Douglas and his armed followers prevailed, killed twenty-six, took twelve prisoners, and set out for the castle, which, in full security, had been left with all the gates open, with no one within but the porter, and the cook dressing the dinner, which was eaten by very different guests from those whom they expected. Douglas had not men enough to hold the castle, and had a great dislike to standing a siege. “I had rather hear the lark sing, than the mouse squeak,” was his saying, and he therefore resolved to return to his king on the mountains, and carry off all the treasure and arms that could be transported from Douglasdale. As to the remainder, he showed that French breeding had not rooted the barbarian even out of the “gentil Lord James.” He broke up every barrel of wheat, flour, or meal, staved every cask of wine or ale among them on the floor of the hall, flung the corpses of dead men and horses upon them, slew his prisoners on the top of the horrible compound, and finally set fire to the castle, calling it, in derision, the Douglas Larder.

Clifford, enraged at this horrible foray, came in person to Douglasdale, cleansed the fire-scathed walls, built a new tower, and entrusted the defence to a captain named Thirlwall. Him Sir James deluded by sending fourteen men to drive a herd of cattle past the castle, when Thirlwall, intending to plunder the drovers, came forth, fell into the ambush laid for him by Douglas, and was slain with all his men.

It went forth among the English, that Black Sir James had made oath that, if he abode not within his father’s castle, neither should any Englishman dwell there. The knights of Edward’s court named it the “Perilous Castle of Douglas,” and Lord Clifford found that even brave men made excuses, and were unwilling to risk the dishonor of the loss, or to run the chance of serving to furnish a second Douglas larder. At this juncture a young lady, enthusiastic in romance, bethought her of making her hand the reward of any knight who would hold out the Perilous Castle for a year and a day. The spirited Sir John de Walton took the damsel at her word, and shut himself up in Douglas Castle; but his prudence did not equal his courage, and he fell a prey to the same stratagem which had deluded Thirlwall, except that the bait, in this case, was sacks of corn instead of wandering cattle. The young knight was slain in the encounter, when his lady’s letters were found in his bosom, and brought to Sir James, who was so much touched by this chivalrous incident that he spared the remainder of the garrison, and gave them provisions and money to return in safety to Clifford [Footnote: The wild adventures at the Perilous Castle derive a most affecting interest from the chord they never failed to touch in the heart of “The Last Minstrel.” Seen by him when a schoolboy, the Dale of Douglas, the ruin of the castle, and the tombs at St. Bride’s, aided to form his spirit of romance; the Douglas ballad lore rang in his ears through life, stirring his heart and swelling his eyes with tears; and the home of the Douglas was the last spot he sought to explore, in the land which he loved with more than a patriot’s love. Castle Dangerous was the last tale he told; and though the hand was feeble, the brain over-tasked, and the strain faltering, yet still the same heart breathed in every word, and it was a fit farewell from Scott to the haunted castles, glens, and hills of his home.]

Douglasdale, Ettrick Forest, and Jeddart, were thus made too terrible to be held by the English; but Bruce himself was for a long time disabled by a severe illness which gave slight hope of recovery. At Inverary, the Earl of Buchan made an attack on him when he was still so weak as to be obliged to be supported on horseback by a man on either side of him; but he gained a complete victory, and followed it up by such a dreadful devastation, that “the harrying of Buchan” was a proverb for half a century. The oaks sunk deep in the mosses bear marks of fire on their trunks, as if in memory of this destruction.

Another victory, a “right fair point of chivalry,” was gained in Galloway by Edward Bruce, who in one year, 1308, took thirteen fortresses in that district. Robert might well say that “he was more afraid of the bones of Edward I. than of the living Edward of Caernarvon, and that it was easier to win a kingdom from the son than half a foot of land from the father.” Edward II. was always intending to come to Scotland in person, and wasting time in preparations, spending subsidies as fast as he collected them, and changing his governors. In less than a year six different rulers were appointed, and, of course no consistent course could be pursued by nobles following each other in such quick succession.

At a lonely house near Lyme Water, Sir James Douglas captured the King’s sister’s son, Thomas Randolph, and led him to Bruce.

“Nephew” said Bruce, “you have forgotten your allegiance.”

“Have Done nothing of which I have been ashamed,” returned Randolph. “You blame me, but you deserve blame. If you choose to defy the King of England, why not debate the matter like a true knight in a pitched field?”

“That may be hereafter,” replied Bruce, calmly; “but since thou art so rude of speech, it is fitting thy proud words should be punished, till thou learn my right and thy duty.”

Whatever was, strictly speaking, Bruce’s _right_, his nephew learnt in captivity to respect it, gave in his adhesion to King Robert, was created Earl of Moray, and became one of the firmest friends of his throne. The world was beginning to afford the successful man countenance, and the cunning Philippe le Bel wrote letters which were to pass through England under the address of the Earl of Carrick, but, within, bore the direction to King Robert of Scotland.

A vain march of Edward II into Scotland was revenged by a horrible inroad of the Scots into Northumberland, up to the very gates of Durham. On his return, Robert tried to surprise Berwick, but was prevented by the barking of a dog, which awakened the garrison. He next besieged Perth. After having discovered the shallowest part of the moat, he made a feint of raising the siege, and, after an absence of eight days, made a sudden night-attack, wading through the moat with the water up to his neck, and a scaling-ladder in one hand, while with the other he felt his way with his spear.

“What,” cried a French knight, “shall we say of our lords, who live at home in ease and jollity, when so brave a knight is here risking his life to win a miserable hamlet?”

So saying, the Frenchman rushed after the King and his men, and the town was taken before the garrison were well awake.

About the same time Douglas came upon Roxburgh, when the garrison were enjoying the careless mirth of Shrovetide. Hiding their armor with dark cloaks, Sir James and his men crept on all-fours through the brushwood till they came to the very foot of the battlements, and could hear a woman singing to her child that the Black Douglas should not touch it, and the sentries saying to each other that yonder oxen were out late. Planting their ladders, the Scots gained the summit of the tower, killed the sentinels, and burst upon the revelry with shouts of “Douglas! Douglas!” The governor, a gallant Burgundian knight, named Fiennes, retreated into the keep, and held out till he was badly wounded, and forced to surrender, when he was spared, and retreated to die in England, while the castle was levelled to the ground by Edward Bruce.

The destruction of these strongholds was matter of great joy to the surrounding peasantry, who had been cruelly despoiled by the English soldiers there stationed; and a farmer, named Binning, actually made an attempt upon the great fortress of Linlithgow, which was well garrisoned by the English. He had been required to furnish the troops with hay, and this gave him the opportunity of placing eight strong peasants well armed, lying hidden, in the wagon, by which he walked himself, while it was driven by a stout countryman with an axe at his belt, and another party were concealed close without the walls.

The drawbridge was lowered, and the portcullis raised to admit the forage, when, at the moment that the wagon stood midway beneath the arch, at a signal from the farmer, the driver with his axe cut asunder the yoke, the horses started forward, and Binning, with a loud cry, “Call all! call all!” drew the sword hidden under his carter’s frock, and killed the porter. The eight men leaped out from among the hay, and were joined by their friends from the ambush without; the cart under the doorway prevented the gates from being closed, and the pile of hay caught the portcullis as it fell. The Englishmen, surprised and discomfited, had no time to make head against the rustics, and were slaughtered or made prisoners; the castle was given up to the King, and Binning received the grant of an estate, and became a gentleman of coat-armor, with a wagon argent on his shield, and the harnessed head of a horse for a crest.

Jedburgh, Stirling, and Edinburgh, were the last castles still in the hands of the invaders. The Castle of Edinburgh, aloft on the rock frowning above the town, had been held by the English full twenty years, and, when Randolph was sent to besiege it, was governed by a Gascon knight named Piers Luband, a kinsman of Gaveston. In hatred and suspicion of all connected with the minion, the English soldiers rose against the foreigner, threw him into a dungeon, and, electing a fresh captain, made oath to hold out to the last. The rock was believed to be inaccessible, and a blockade appeared to be the only means of reducing the garrison. This had already lasted six weeks, when a man named Frank, coming secretly to Randolph, told him that his father had formerly been governor, and that he, when a youth, had been in the habit of scrambling down the south face of the rock, at night, to visit a young damsel who lived in the Grass-market, and returning in the same manner; and he undertook to guide a party by this perilous ascent into the very heart of the castle.