Chapter XX: Part 20

The King presently arriving at Pontefract, brought Lancaster to trial before six Earls and a number of Barons; and as his treason was manifest, he was told that it would be to no purpose to speak in his own defence, and was sentenced to the death of a traitor. In consideration of his royal blood, Edward remitted the chief horrors of the execution, and made it merely decapitation; but as the Earl was led to a hill outside the town, on a gray pony without a bridle, the mob pelted him and jeered him by his assumed name of King Arthur. “King of Heaven,” he cried, “grant me mercy! for the king of earth hath forsaken me.” He knelt by the black with his face to the east, but he was bidden to turn to the north, that he might look toward his friends, the Scots; and in this manner he was beheaded. The inhabitants of the northern counties were not likely to think lightly of the offence of bringing in the Scots, and yet in a short time there was a strong change of feeling. Lancaster was mourned as “the good Earl,” and miracles were said to be wrought at his tomb. The King was obliged to write orders to the Bishop of London to forbid the people from offering worship to his picture hung up in St. Paul’s Church; and Drayton records a tradition that “grass would never grow where the battle of Boroughbridge had been fought.” It seemed as if Lancaster had succeeded to the reputation of Montfort, as a protector of the liberties of the country: but to our eyes he appears more like a mere factious, turbulent noble, acting rather from spite and party spirit than as a redresser of wrongs; never showing the respect for law and justice manifested by the opponents of Edward I.; and, in fact, constraining the Royalists to appeal to Magna Charta against him. Still there must have been something striking and attractive about him, for, after his death, even his injured cousin Edward lamented him, and reproached his nobles for not having interceded for him. Fourteen bannerets and fourteen other knights were executed, being all who were taken in arms against the King; the others were allowed to make peace; and the Mortimers, who had been condemned to death, had their sentence changed to perpetual imprisonment. Hereford’s estates passed on to the eldest of his large family, the King’s own nephews. Lancaster left no children, but his brother, Henry Wryneck, Earl of Derby, did not receive his estates till they had been mulcted largely on behalf of the Despensers. The father was created Earl of Winchester, and the son received such bounty from the King, that all the old hatred against Piers Gaveston was revived, though it does not appear that Hugh provoked dislike by any such follies or extravagances.

The elder Roger Mortimer, the uncle, died in the Tower. The younger contrived, after a year’s imprisonment, to make interest with one of the servants in the Tower, Gerard de Asplaye, with whose assistance he gave an entertainment to his guards, drugged their liquor, so as to throw them into a heavy sleep, broke through the wall into the royal kitchen, and thence escaped by a rope-ladder. Report afterward averred that it was the fairest hand in England that drugged the wine and held the rope, and that Queen Isabel,

“From the wall’s height, as when he down did slide,
Had heard him cry, ‘Now, Fortune, be my guide!’”

Thus far is certain, that Isabel and Mortimer were inmates of the Tower at the same time, in the year 1321; for she was left there while the King was gone in pursuit of Lancaster, and she there gave birth to her fourth child, Joan. Whether the prisoner then sought an interview with her, is not known, but he was a remarkably handsome man, and Isabel, at twenty-six years of age, was beautiful, proud, and with bitterness in her heart against her husband for his early neglect. She had been on fairly good terms with him ever since the birth of the Prince of Wales, and her grace and beauty, her affable manners, and the idea that she was ill-used, made her a great favorite with the English nation; but she was angered by the execution of her uncle, the Earl of Lancaster, and from the time of the King’s return she proceeded to manifest great discontent, and as much dislike and jealousy of the Despensers as she had previously shown toward Gaveston.

Mortimer escaped to France, and subsequent events made it seem as if she had been acting in concert with him. He had married a French lady, Jeanne de Joinville, and was taken at once into the service of King Charles IV.

Charles IV., le Bel, was the youngest of Isabel’s brothers, who had succeeded each other so quickly that it seemed as though the sacrilegious murder of the Templars was to be visited by the extinction of the male line of Philippe IV. To Charles, Isabel sent great complaints, declaring that she was “married to a gripple miser, and was no better than a waiting-woman, living on a pension from the Despensers.” There had, in fact, been a fierce struggle with them for power, and they had prevailed to have all her French attendants dismissed, very probably on the discovery of the transactions with Mortimer in the Tower, and a yearly income had been assigned to her in lieu of her royal estates. This was very irregularly paid, for affairs were in a most confused and disorderly state, managed in a most childish manner. It appears that, when hunting at Windsor, the Chancellor Baldock gave the great seal to the King to keep, and that the King made it over to William de Ayremyne.

There were no doubt grounds for complaint on both sides; but Charles le Bel saw only his sister’s view of the question, and resolved to quarrel with his brother-in-law. Homage for the Duchy of Aquitaine had not been rendered to him, and on this pretext he began to exercise all possible modes of annoyance on the borders, and to give judgment against any Guiennois or Poitevins who sued against Edward as their liege lord, Edward remonstrated in vain, and sent his brother Edmund, Earl of Kent, a fine-looking but weak young man of twenty-two, to endeavor to make peace, but in vain: on the first pretext, a war on the borders broke out.

Thereupon Edward took into his custody all the castles belonging to his wife, declaring that he could not leave them in her hands while she was in correspondence with the enemies of the country; and yet, with his usual inconsistent folly, he listened to a proposal from her that she should go to Paris to bring about a peace with her brother.

With four knights, Isabel crossed the sea, and presently made her appearance at Paris in the character of an injured Princess, kneeling before her brother, and asking his protection against the cruelty of her husband; to which Charles replied, “Sister, be comforted; for, by my faith to Monseigneur St. Denis, I will find a remedy.”

Isabel was lodged at the court of France, and treated with distinction. Mortimer and all the banished English repaired to her abode, and all the chivalry of France regarded her as an exiled heroine. She wrote to her husband that peace might be scoured by the performance of the neglected homage, and he was actually setting out for the purpose, when, in a second letter, she told him that his own presence was not needed, but that his ceremony might be gone through by his son Edward, Prince of Wales, provided the duchy were placed in his hands as an appanage.

This proposal met with approval, and young Edward, then twelve years old, under the charge of the Bishops of Exeter and Oxford, was sent to Paris, after having promised his father to hasten his return, and not to marry without his consent.

No sooner had the boy arrived, than the homage was performed, and Edward expected the return of both mother and son; but they still delayed, and on receiving urgent letters from him, the Queen made public declaration that she did not believe her life in safety from the Despensers.

Poor King Edward, amazed, and almost thinking her under a delusion, roused all the prelates in the realm to write to her in defence of his friends, and himself wrote to her brother, saying that she could have no reasonable fear of any man in his dominions, since, if Hugh or any other person wished to do her any harm, he himself would be the first to resent it. He wrote likewise pre-emptorily to the Prince to return, but all in vain; and a light was thrown on their proceedings, when Walter Stapleton, Bishop of Exeter, returned home as a fugitive, having discovered a plot on Mortimer’s part against his own life, and bringing word that Isabel’s affection for Mortimer was the true cause of delay. It would also seem that the Bishop had in part detected a conspiracy against his master, for there were orders instantly sent to search all letters arriving at any of the ports.

After Stapleton’s return, Edward’s letters to Charles, and even to the Pope, became so pressing, that for very shame Charles could not allow his sister to remain at Paris any longer, and, rather than provoke a war, he dismissed her. She was a woman of great plausibility and fascination, and she not only persuaded her young son to believe her in danger from his father, but she also won over her brother-in-law, the Earl of Kent, as well as her cousin, the Sieur Robert d’Artois; and setting out from Paris in their company, she proceeded to the independent German principalities in the guise of a dame-errant of romance, misused by her husband, maltreated by her brother, denied a refuge even in her native country, and seeking aid from foreign princes.

Every chivalrous heart, deluded by appearances, glowed with enthusiasm. At Ostrevant, John, the brother of the Count of Hainault, came and vowed himself her knight, promising to redress her wrongs. He conducted her to his brother’s court at Hainault; and there the young Edward first beheld the plump, blue-eyed, fair-haired, honest Philippa, a girl of about his own age, and a youthful true-love sprang up between them--the sole gleam of light in this dark period.

Isabel’s beautiful face and mournful tale deluded the young, as did Mortimer’s promises the covetous. She finally set sail from Dort with 2,500 French and Brabançons, under the charge of Sir John of Hainault, and landed at Orwell, in Suffolk. The King had ordered that any one who landed on the coast should be treated as a traitor, except the Queen and the Prince, and had set a price on the head of Mortimer; but no one attended to him. Isabel had won the sympathy of the nation by her fancied wrongs; and Adam Orleton, Bishop of Hereford, a former partisan of Lancaster, was working in her cause.

Both the King’s brothers, and his cousin, Henry of Lancaster, were of her party; and the universal dislike and jealousy of Despenser made the more loyal disinclined to exert themselves in the King’s behalf. He summoned the Londoners to take up arms, but was answered, that though they would shut the gates against all foreigners, they would not be led more than a day’s march beyond the city walls. He could only seek a refuge among his more attached subjects, the Welsh; and leaving his younger children and his niece, the wife of Hugh le Despenser, in the Tower, he set off for the marches of Wales. No sooner was he gone, than the citizens rose, seized the Tower, and murdered the loyal Bishop of Exeter at St. Paul’s Cross, throwing his body into the mud of the river, and sending his head to the Queen.

The Queen, whose army increased every day, had arrived at Oxford, where Adam Orleton preached a disgraceful sermon on the text, “My head, my head acheth,” wherein he averred the startling prescription that the cure for an aching head was to cut it off, and that the present head of England needed this decisive remedy.

The poor King had gone to Gloucester, whence he sent the elder Le Despenser to hold out Bristol Castle; but the townspeople proved so disaffected, that the castle was forced to surrender to the rebels on the third day. The Queen appointed a judge, who sentenced the old man, ninety years of age, to be put to death; and the murder was committed the following day, with all the circumstances of atrocity that had been spared to Lancaster. At Bristol, Isabel became aware that her husband had fled farther to the West; he had, in fact, sailed, with Hugh le Despenser and the Chancellor Baldock, for Ireland, but he was driven back by contrary winds, and forced to land in Glamorganshire. He wandered from castle to castle, and was besieged at Caerphilli, whence it is said that he escaped at night in the disguise of a peasant; and, to avoid detection, himself assisted in carrying brushwood to feed the fires of the besiegers. He next took refuge in a farmhouse, where the farmer tried to baffle the pursuers by setting him to dig; but his awkwardness in handling the spade had nearly betrayed him. For a short time he tarried at Neath Abbey, but left it lest the monks should suffer for giving him shelter. At the end of another week Despenser and Baldock were discovered, and delivered up to Henry of Lancaster; and on this Edward came forward and gave himself up, to save them, or to share their fate.

There was no hope; the King was kept in close custody, and Baldock was so ill-treated that he died shortly after. Hugh le Despenser would eat no food after he was taken; and, lest death should balk revenge, he was at once brought to a sham trial, and accused of every misfortune that had befallen England--of the loss of Bannockburn; of conspiracy against the Queen; of counselling the death of Lancaster; and of suppressing the miracles at his tomb. For all which deeds Sir Hugh le Despenser was sentenced to die as a wicked and attainted traitor; and immediately after he was drawn to execution in a black gown, with his scutcheon reversed, and a wreath of nettles around his head--but, happily, nearly insensible from exhaustion--and was hanged on a gallows fifty feet high. His son Hugh, a spirited young man of nineteen, held out Caerphilli Castle manfully, until he actually obtained a promise of safety, and lived to transmit the honors of the oldest barony now existing in England.

The Earl of Arundel was likewise executed, and Mortimer seized his property; after which the Queen set out for London, summoning the Parliament to meet at Westminster.

In this Parliament Adam Orleton began by making outrageous speeches as to the certain death it would be to the Queen and Prince if the King were released and restored to his authority, and he called upon the Lords to choose whether father or son should be King. The London mob clamored in fury without, ardent for the ruin of the King; and the Archbishop, saying, _Vox populi vox Dei_, added his influence. Young Edward was led forward, and a few hymns being hastily sung, received the oaths of allegiance of all the peers present, except the prelates of York, London, Rochester, and Carlisle, who boldly maintained the rights of the captive King, though with great danger to themselves.

The Bishop of Rochester was thrown down by the furious mob, and nearly murdered; and the sight so terrified the other friends of the poor King, that not a voice was raised in his defence. A bill was passed declaring Edward II. deposed, and Edward III. the sovereign; whereupon Isabel, to keep up appearances, lamented so much, that she actually deceived her son, who came forward, and with great spirit declared that he would never deprive his father of the crown.

The King was at Kenilworth, honorably treated by his cousin, Henry of Lancaster, and thither a deputation was sent to force him to resign his dignity. The Bishops of Winchester and Lincoln were first sent to him to argue, threaten, and persuade, and, when they thought him sufficiently prepared, led him in a plain black gown to make his formal renunciation. At the sight of his mortal enemy, Orleton, Edward sank to the ground, but recovered enough to listen to a violent discourse from that rebel prelate, reproaching him with all his misconduct, and requiring him to lay aside his crown. Meekly, and weeping floods of tears, Edward replied, that “he was in their hands, and they must do what seemed good to them; he only thanked them for their goodness to his son, and owned his own sins to be the sole cause of his misfortunes.”

Then Sir William Trussel, in the name of all England, revoked the oath of allegiance, and the steward of the household broke his staff of office, as he would have done had it been the funeral of his master. Would that it had been his funeral, must have been the wish of the unfortunate Sir Edward of Caernarvon, as he was thenceforth termed; disowned, degraded, with wife, son, and brothers turned against him; not one voice uplifted in his favor; all his friends murdered. He wrote some melancholy Latin verses during his captivity, full of sad complaints of the inconstancy of Fortune; but he had not yet experienced the worst that was in store for him. At first, presents of clothes and kindly messages were sent to him by the Queen; and when he begged to see her or his children, she replied that it would not be permitted by Parliament. He pleaded again and again, and Henry of Lancaster began so far to appear his friend, that Isabel took alarm. The Pope refused her request that Thomas of Lancaster should be canonized as a saint and martyr, and she feared that he might even interfere on the King’s behalf, and oblige her to give up Mortimer, and return to her husband.

Orleton had been sent on an embassy to the Papal court, but he was there consulted by the Queen whether the King should be allowed to live. His answer was the ambiguous line: “Edwardum occidere nolite timere bonum est.” (Edward to kill be unwilling to fear it is good.)

Doubt, in such a case, is certain to end in evil. That the King should die, was determined, and the charge of the unfortunate monarch was therefore transferred to Maurice, Lord Berkeley, and to Sir John Maltravers. The latter set out with two men, named Ogle and Gurney, to escort the King from Kenilworth. At Bristol such demonstrations were made in his favor, that, taking alarm, his keepers clad him in mean and scanty garments, and made him ride toward Corfe in the chilly April night, scoffing and jeering him; and when, in the morning, they paused to arrange their dress, they set a crown of hay in derision on his head, and brought him, in an old helmet, filthy ditch-water to shave with. With a shower of tears he strove to smile, saying that, in spite of them, his cheeks were covered with pure warm water enough. They brought him to Berkeley Castle, on the Severn, and there, it is said, tried to poison him; but his strength of constitution resisted the potion, and did not fail, under confinement or insufficient diet. At last, when Berkeley was ill, and absent, came the night,

“When Severn should re-echo with affright
The sounds of death through Berkeley’s roofs that ring,
Shrieks of an agonizing king.”

At those cries many a countryman awoke, crossed himself, and prayed as for a soul departing in torment. Seven months after his deposition, Edward of Caernarvon lay dead in Berkeley Castle, and the gates were thrown open, and the chief burghers of Bristol admitted to see his corpse. No sign of violence was visible, but the features, once so beautiful, were writhed into such a look of agony, that the citizens came away awed and horrified; and hearing the villagers speak of the cries that had rung from the walls the night before, felt certain that the late King had perished by a strange and frightful murder.

But those were no days for inquiry, and the royal corpse was hastily borne to Gloucester Abbey Church, and there buried. The impression, however, could not be forgotten; multitudes flocked to pray at the shrine of the dead sovereign, whom living no one would befriend: and such offerings were made at his tomb, that the monks raised a beautiful new south aisle to the church; nay, they could have built the church over again with the means thus acquired. A monument was raised over his grave, and his effigy was carved on it--a robed and crowned figure, with hands meekly folded, and a face of such exquisite, appealing sweetness, dignity, and melancholy, that it is hardly possible to look at it without tears, or to help believing that even thus might Edward have looked when, in all the nobleness of patience, he stood forgiving his persecutors, as they crowned him in scorn with grass, and derided his misfortunes. A weak and frivolous man, cruelly sinned against, Edward of Caernarvon was laid in his untimely grave in the forty-third year of his age.

Thus ended the Barons’ Wars, no patriotic resistance of an opposition who used sword and lance instead of the tongue and the pen, but the factious jealousy of men who became ferocious in their hatred of favoritism.

CAMEO XLI. GOOD KING ROBERT’S TESTAMENT. (1314-1329.)

_Kings of England_.
1307. Edward II.
1327. Edward III.
1322. Charles IV.

_King of Scotland_.
1306. Robert I.

_King of France_.
1314. Louis X.
1316. Philippe V.

_Emperor of Germany_.
1314. Louis V.

_Popes_.
1305. Clement V.
1316. John XXII.

As England waxed feebler, Scotland waxed stronger and became aggressive. Robert’s queen was dead, and he married Elizabeth, daughter of the Earl of Ulster, thus making his brother Edward doubtful whether the Scottish crown would descend to him, and anxious to secure a kingdom for himself.

Ireland had not been reconciled in two centuries to the domination of the Plantagenets. The Erse, or Irish, believed themselves brethren of the Scots, and in all their wanderings and distresses the Bruces had found shelter, sympathy, and aid in the wild province of Ulster. It seemed, therefore, to Edward Bruce a promising enterprise to offer the Irish chieftains deliverance from the English yoke; and they eagerly responded to his proposal. In 1314, he crossed the sea with a small force, before any one was ready for him, and was obliged at once to return, having thus given the alarm; so that Sir Edward Butler, the Lord Deputy, hurried to the defence, and had mustered his forces by the time Edward Bruce arrived, the next spring, with 6,000 men. He was actually crowned King, and laid siege to Carrickfergus, while the wild chieftains of Connaught broke into the English settlements, and did great mischief, till they were defeated at Athenry by the Earl of Ulster’s brother and Sir Richard Bermingham. After the battle, Sir Richard Bermingham sent out his page, John Hussy, with a single attendant, to “turn up and peruse” the bodies, to see whether his mortal foe O’Kelly were among them. O’Kelly presently started out of a bush where he had been hidden, and thus addressed the youth: “Hussy, thou seest I am at all points armed, and have my esquire, a manly man, beside me. Thou art thin, and a youngling; so that, if I loved thee not for thine own sake, I might betray thee for thy master’s. But come and serve me at my request, and I promise thee, by St. Patrick’s staff, to make thee a lord in Connaught of more ground than thy master hath in Ireland.” Hussy treated the offer with scorn, whereupon his attendant, “a stout lubber, began to reprove him for not relenting to so rich a proffer.” Hussy’s answer was, to cut down the knave; next, “he raught to O’Kelly’s squire a great rap under the pit of the ear, which overthrew him; thirdly, he bestirred himself so nimbly, that ere any help could be hoped for, he had also slain O’Kelly, and perceiving breath in the squire, he drawed him up again, and forced him upon a truncheon to bear his lord’s head into the high town.”

These notable exploits were rewarded by knighthood and the lordship of Galtrim.

Robert Bruce brought a considerable army to the assistance of his brother, and wasted the country up to the walls of Dublin; but Roger Mortimer coming to the relief of the city, he was forced to retreat. It was a horrible devastation that he made, and yet this was only what was then supposed to be the necessity of war, for it was while burning many a homestead, and reducing multitudes to perish with famine, that Bruce halted his whole army to protect one sick and suffering washerwoman.

“This was a full great courtesy,
That swilk a king and so mighty
Gert his men dwell on this manner
But for a poor lavender.”

Bruce was one of the many men tender to the friend, ruthless to the foe; merciful to sufferings he beheld, merciless to those out of his sight. He returned to Scotland, and Mortimer to England, both leaving horrible hunger and distress behind them, and Mortimer in debt £1,000 to the city of Dublin, “whereof he payde not one smulkin, and many a bitter curse he carried with him beyond sea.”

Edward Bruce continued to reign in Ulster until the 5th of October, 1318, when the last and nineteenth battle was fought between him and the English, contrary to the advice of his wisest captains. His numbers were very inferior, and almost the whole were slain. Edward Bruce and Sir John Malpas, an English knight, were found lying one upon the other, slain by each other’s hands in the deadly conflict. Robert, who was on the way to bring reinforcements to his brother, turned back on hearing the tidings, and employed his forces against his old foe, John of Lorn, in the Western Isles, and it was on this occasion that, to avoid doubling the Mull of Cantire, he dragged his ships upon a wooden slide across the neck of land between the two locks of Tarbut--a feat often performed by the fishermen, and easy with the small galleys of his fleet, but which had a great effect on the minds of the Islemen, for there was an old saying--

“That he should gar shippes sua
Betwixt those seas with sailis gae
Should win the Islis sua till hand,
That nane with strength should him withstand.”

Accordingly they submitted, and Lorn, being taken, was shut up for life in Lochleven Castle.

It was about the time of Edward Bruce’s wild reign in Ulster that Dublin University was founded by Archbishop Bigmore; and in contrast to this advance in learning, a few years later, a horrible and barbarous warfare raged, because Lord de la Poer was supposed to have insulted Maurice of Desmond by calling him a rhymer. Moreover, at Kilkenny, a lady, called Dame Alice Kettle, was cited before the Bishop of Ossory for witchcraft. It was alleged that she had a familiar spirit, to whom she was wont to sacrifice nine red cocks, and nine peacocks’ eyes; that she had a staff “on which she ambled through thick and thin;” and that between compline and twilight she was wont to sweep the streets, singing,

“To the house of William, my son,
Hie all the wealth of Kilkenny town.”

She was acquitted on the charge of witchcraft, but her enemies next attacked her on the ground of heresy, and succeeded in accomplishing her death.

The Pope at Avignon assisted the English cause by keeping Bruce and his kingdom under an interdict; but the Scots continued to make inroads on England, and year after year the most frightful devastation was committed. In 1319, the Archbishop of York, hoping for another Battle of the Standard, collected all his clergy and their tenants, and led them against Douglas and Randolph at Mitton; but their efforts were unavailing, and such multitudes were slain, that the field was covered with the white surplices they wore over their armor, and the combat was called the Chapter of Mitton.

For many long years were the northern provinces the constant prey of the Scots, as the discords of the English laid their country open to invasion. Bruce himself was indeed losing his strength, the leprosy contracted during his life of wandering and distress was gaining ground on his constitution, and unnerving his strong limbs; but Douglas and Randolph gallantly supplied his place at the head of his armies, and his affairs were everywhere prospering. He had indeed lost his eldest daughter Marjorie, but she had left a promising son, Robert Stuart; and to himself a son had likewise been born, named David, after the royal Saint of Scotland, and so handsome and thriving a child, that it was augured that he would be a warrior of high prowess.

Rome was induced, in 1323, to acknowledge Robert as King, on his promise to go on a crusade to recover the Holy Land--a promise he was little likely to be in a condition to fulfil; and Edward II began to enter into negotiations, and make proposals, that disputes should be set aside by the betrothal of the little David and his youngest daughter, Joan. But these arrangements were broken off by the rebellion of Isabel, and the deposition of Edward of Caernarvon; and Bruce sent Douglas and Randolph to make a fresh attack upon Durham and Northumberland. The wild army were all on horseback; the knights and squires on tolerable steeds, the poorer sort on rough Galloways. They needed no forage for their animals save the grass beneath their feet, no food for themselves except the cattle which they seized, and whose flesh they boiled in their hides. Failing these, each man had a bag of oatmeal, and a plate of metal on which he could bake his griddle-cakes. This was their only baggage; true to the Lindsay motto, the stars were their only tents: and thus they flashed from one county to another, doing infinite mischief, and the dread of every one.

While young Edward III was being crowned, they had well-nigh seized the Castle of Norham. The tidings filled the boy with fire and indignation. He was none of the meek, indifferent stock that the Planta Genista sometimes bore, but all the resolution and brilliancy of the line had descended on him in full measure, and all the sweetness and courtesy, together with all the pride and ambition of his race, shone in his blue eye, and animated his noble and gracious figure. He was well-read in chivalrous tales, and it was time that he should perform deeds of arms worthy of his ladye-love, the flaxen-haired Philippa of Hainault.

Strange was the contrast of the pure, ardent spirit, with the scenes of shame and disgrace of which he was as yet unconscious. He knew not that he was a usurper--that one parent was perishing in a horrible captivity, the other holding himself and his kingdom in shameful trammels, and giving them over into the power of her traitorous lover.

But Edward was sixteen, and Isabel and Mortimer could only hope to continue their dominion by keeping him at a distance; and he was therefore placed at the head of a considerable army, with Sir John of Hainault as his adviser, and sent forth to deliver his country from the Scots.

Good Sir John of Hainault, accustomed to prick his heavy Flemish war-horse over the Belgian undulating plains, that Nature would seem to have designed for fair battle-fields, was no match for the light horsemen of the Scots, trained to wild, desultory warfare. He and his young King thought the respectable way of fighting was for one side to wait civilly for the other, interchange polite defiances on either side, take no advantage of ground, but ride fairly at each other with pennons flying and trumpets sounding, like a tournament; and they did not at all approve of enemies of whom they saw no trace but a little distant smoke in the horizon, and black embers of villages wherever they marched. There was no coming up with them. The barons set forth in the morning, fierce, and wound up for a battle, pennons displayed, and armor burnished; but by and by the steeds floundered in the peat-bogs, the steep mountain-sides were hard to climb for men and horses cased in proof armor, and when shouts or cries broke out at a distance, and with sore labor the knights struggled to the spot in hopes of an engagement, it proved to have been merely the hallooing of some other part of the army at the wild deer that bounded away from the martial array. When, at night, they reached the banks of the Tyne, and had made their way across the ford, they found themselves in evil case, for all their baggage and provisions were far behind, stuck in the bogs, or stumbling up the mountain-sides, and they had nothing to eat but a single loaf, which each man had carried strapped behind him, and which had a taste of all the various peat-bogs into which he had sunk. The horses had nothing to eat, and there was nothing to fasten them to, so that their masters were forced to spend the whole night holding them by the bridles. They hoped for better things at dawn, but with it came rain, which swelled the river so much that none of the foot or baggage could hope to cross, nor, indeed, could any messenger return to find out where they were. The gentlemen were forced to set to work with their swords to cut down green boughs to weave into huts, and to seek for grass and leaves for their horses. By and by came some peasants, who told them they were fourteen miles from Newcastle and eleven from Carlisle, and no provisions could be obtained any nearer. Messengers were instantly sent off, promising safety and large prices to any one who would bring victuals to the famishing camp, and the burghers of Newcastle and Carlisle seem to have reaped a rich harvest, by sending a moderate supply of bread and wine at exorbitant prices. For a whole week of rain did the army continue in this disconsolate position, without tents, fire, or candle, and with perpetual rain, till the saddles and girths were rotted, the horses wasted to skeletons, and the army, with rusted mail and draggled banners and plumes, a dismal contrast to the gay troops who had lately set forth.

After waiting a week, fancying the Scots must pass the ford, they gave up this hope, and resolved to re-cross higher up. Edward set forth a proclamation, that the man who should lead him where he could cope on dry ground with the Scots, should be knighted by his own hand, and receive a hundred pounds a year in land. Fifteen gentlemen, thus incited, galloped off in quest of the enemy, and one of them, an esquire named Thomas Rokeby, who made toward Weardale, not only beheld the Scots encamped on the steep hill-side sloping toward the Wear, but was seized by their outposts, and led before Douglas. Sir James was in a position where he had no objection to see King Edward, with a natural fortification of rocks on his flanks, a mountain behind, and the river foaming in a swollen torrent over the rocks in the ravine in front of him. So, when Rokeby had told his tale, Douglas gave him his ransom and liberty, on the sole condition that he should not rest till he had brought the tidings to the King--terms which he was not slow to fulfil. He found the English army on the Derwent, at the ruined Augustinian monastery of Blanchland; and, highly delighted, Edward gave the promised reward, and the army prepared for a battle by confession and hearing mass. Then all set forth in high spirits, and came to the spot, where they were so close to the enemy that they could see the arms on the shields of the nobles, and the red, hairy buskins of the ruder sort, shaped from the hides of the cattle they had killed.

Edward made his men dismount, thinking to cross the river; but, on examination, he found this impossible. He then sent an invitation to the Scottish leaders to come out and have a fair fight; but at this they laughed, saying that they had burnt and spoiled in his land, and it was his part to punish them as he could; they should stay there as long as they pleased. As it was known that there was neither bread nor wine in their camp, it was hoped that this would not be very long; but from the merriment nightly heard round the watchfires, it seemed that oatmeal and beef satisfied them just as well, and the English were far more miserable in their position.

On the third night, though the fires blazed and the horns resounded at midnight, by dawn nothing was to be seen but the bare, gray hill-side. The Scots had made off during the night, and were presently discovered perched in a similar spot on the river side, only with a wood behind them, called Stanhope Park.

Again Edward encamped on the other side of the river, and watched the foe in vain. One night, however, Douglas, with a small body of men, crept across the river at a ford higher up, and stealing to the precincts of the camp, rode past the sentry, crying out in an English tone, “Ha, St. George! no watch here!” and made his way into the midst of the tents, smiling to himself at the murmur of an English soldier, that the Black Douglas might yet play them some trick. Presently, with loud shouts of “Douglas! Douglas! English thieves, ye shall die!” his men fell on the sleeping army, and had slain three hundred in a very short time, while he made his way to the royal tent, cut the ropes, and as the boy, “a soldier then for holidays,” awoke, “by his couch, a grisly chamberlain,” stood the Black Lord James! His chaplain threw himself between, and fell in the struggle, while Edward crept out under the canvas, and others of the household came to his rescue. The whole army was now awakened, and Douglas fought his way out on the other side of the camp, blowing his horn to collect his men. On his return, Randolph asked him what he had done. “Only drawn a little blood,” said Douglas.

“Ah!” said Randolph, “we should have gone down with the whole army.”

“The risk would have been over-great,” said Douglas.

“Then must we fight them, by open day, for our provisions are failing, and we shall soon be famished.”

“Nay,” said Sir James, “let us treat them as the fox did the fisherman, who, finding him eating a salmon before the fire in his hut, drew his sword, and stood in the doorway, meaning to slay him without escape. But the fox seized a mantle, and drew it over the fire; the fisherman flew to save his mantle, and Master Fox made off safely with the salmon by the door unguarded!”

On this model the wary Scot arranged his retreat, making a multitude of hurdles of wattled boughs to be laid across the softer places in the bog behind them, and giving secret orders that all should be ready to move at night. This could not be done so secretly that some tidings did not reach the English; but they expected another night-attack, and, though they continued under arms, made no attempt to ascertain the proceedings of the enemy till daybreak, when, crossing the river, they found nothing alive but five poor English prisoners bound naked to trees, with their legs broken. Around them lay five hundred large cattle, killed because they went too slowly to be driven along, three hundred skins filled with meat and water hung over the fires, one hundred spits with meat on them, and ten thousand of the hairy shoes of the Scots--the enemy were entirely gone; and Edward, baffled, grieved, and ashamed, fairly burst into tears at his disappointment.

His army was unable to continue the pursuit, and in two days arrived at Durham, where the honest burghers had stored under outhouses all the wagons that had been left behind in the advance thirty-two days before, each with a little flag to show whose property it was. Tidings being brought that the Scots had gone to their own country, Edward turned his face southward, and, by the time he reached York, had had the mortification of losing all his horses, from the privations the poor creatures had undergone; while the discontent of his subjects found vent in ascribing all the misfortunes to Roger Mortimer’s treachery--an additional crime of which he may fairly be acquitted. Edward continued at York all that autumn, apparently keeping aloof from his mother’s court; or else it was her object to prevent him from perceiving the guilty counsels that there prevailed, and which resulted in the murder of his father. To York Sir John of Hainault fetched the young bride, his niece Philippa, and the marriage took place in the cathedral on St. Paul’s Day, 1328, the two young people being then sixteen and fifteen years of age. Meantime, Robert Bruce, partially recovering, laid siege to Norham, and in the exhausted state of England it was decided to offer him peace, fully acknowledging his right to the throne, yielding up the regalia and the royal stone of Scotland, and uniting his son David with the little Princess Joan.

The nation were exceedingly angry at the peace, necessary as it was, and charged the disgrace upon Mortimer. They rose in tumult, and prevented the coronation-stone from being taken away, and they called the marriage a base alliance. Even Edward himself refused to be present with his young wife at the marriage of his little sister, which was to take place at Berwick. His mother tried to induce him to come, by arranging a joust; she had six spears painted splendidly for his use, others for his companions, and three hundred and sixty more for other English gentlemen; but he was resolved to keep his Philippa aloof from the company of Mortimer and his mother, and remained with her at Woodstock, notwithstanding all temptations to display.

Bruce was too ill to go to Berwick, but gave his son, then five years old, into the charge of Douglas and Randolph. The little bride, called by the Scots Joan Makepeace, was conducted by her mother and Mortimer with the most brilliant pomp.

Mortimer’s display and presumption outdid even poor Piers Gaveston: he had one hundred and eighty knights in his own train alone, and their dress was so fantastically gay that the Scots jested on them, and made rhymes long current in the North:

“Longbeards, heartless,
Gay coats, graceless,
Painted hoods, witless,
Maketh England thriftless.”

Queen Isabel herself was wont to wear such a tower on her head, that doorways had to be altered to enable her to pass under them; and her expenses were so great, that no revenue was left to maintain her young daughter-in-law Philippa.

Henry, sometimes called Wryneck, Earl of Derby, brother of the rebel Thomas of Lancaster, and Thomas and Edmund, Earls of Norfolk and Kent, the youngest sons of Edward I., had begun bitterly to repent of having been deceived by this wicked woman. Even Adam Orleton had quarrelled with her for attempting to exact a monstrous bribe for making him Bishop of Winchester; but Mortimer was determined to keep up his power by violence. At a parliament at Salisbury, where the young King and Queen were presiding, he broke in with his armed followers, and carried them off in a sort of captivity to Winchester. The three Earls took up arms, but the Earls of Kent and Norfolk, who seem to have had their full share of the family folly, deserted Lancaster, and he was forced to make peace, after paying an immense fine.

Still Isabel and Mortimer felt their insecurity, or else they had such an appetite for treachery and murder, that they were driven on to commit further crimes. A report was set about that Edward of Caernarvon was still living in Corfe Castle, and one of his actual murderers, Maltravers, offered the unfortunate Edmund of Kent to convey letters from him to his brother; nay, it was arranged, for his further deception, that he should peep into a dungeon and behold at a distance a captive, who had sufficient resemblance to the late King to be mistaken for him in the gloom. Letters were written by the Earl and his wife to the imaginary prisoner, and entrusted to Maltravers, who carried them at once to Queen Isabel. A sufficient body of evidence having thus been procured for her purposes, the unfortunate Edmund was arraigned before the parliament at Winchester, when he confessed that the letters had been written by himself; and, further, that a preaching friar had conjured up a spirit on whose authority he believed his brother to be alive. He was found guilty of treason, and sentenced to death by persons who expected that his rank would save him; but the She-wolf of France was resolved on having his blood, and decreed that he should die the next day. Such was the horror at the sentence, that the headsman stole secretly away from Winchester to avoid performing his office, and for four long hours of the 13th of March, 1329, did Earl Edmund Plantagenet stand on the scaffold above the castle gate, waiting till some one could be found to put him to death, in the name of his own nephew and by the will of his mother’s niece. He was only twenty-eight, and had four little children; and, in those dreary hours, what must not have been his hopes that the young Edward would awaken to a sense of the wickedness that was being perpetrated, so abhorrent to his warm and generous nature! But hopes were vain. Queen Isabel “kept her son so beset” all day, that no word could be spoken to him respecting his uncle, and at length a felon was sought out, who, as the price of his own pardon, dealt the death-stroke to the son of the great Edward.

After this act of intimidation, Mortimer’s insolence went still farther, and England was fully sensible that the minion now reigning united all the faults of the former ones--the extravagance and rapacity of Gaveston, and the pride and violence of the Despensers; and as if to bring upon himself their very fate, he caused himself to be appointed Warden of the Marches of Wales, and helped himself to manor after manor of the Despenser property. His name and lineage were Welsh, and in memory of King Arthur he held tournaments which he called Round Tables, and made this display so frequent, that his own son Geoffrey became ashamed of them, and called him the King of Folly.

Meantime, the modest and innocent young court at Woodstock was made happy by the birth of the heir to the crown--a babe of such promise and beauty that even grave chroniclers pause to record his noble aspect, and the motherly fondness of the youthful Philippa, then only seventeen. Again Queen Isabel was obliged to trust her son out of the hands of herself and her minions. Her last brother, King Charles IV., was dead, leaving only daughters; and though she fancied the claim of her son Edward to the French crown to be nearer than that of Philippe, Count of Valois, the son of her father’s brother, it was not convenient to press the assumption, and it was therefore resolved that young Edward should go to Amiens to perform his homage to Philippe. He was only fifteen days absent from England, and duly swore fealty to Philippe; the one robed in blue velvet and golden lilies, the other in crimson velvet worked with the English lions; but the pageant was a worthless ceremony, and the journey was chiefly important as bringing him to a full sense of the esteem in which his mother was held at home and abroad. Edward was nearly nineteen, and was resolved that he and his country should be held in unworthy bondage no longer. He confided his plans to Sir William Montacute, and they agreed to bring about the downfall of Mortimer at the next parliament, which was summoned to meet at Nottingham.

So suspicious were the Queen and her favorite, that they always travelled with a strong guard, and, on entering Nottingham Castle, the locks on all the gates were changed, and the keys were every night brought to the Queen, who hid them under her pillow. Edward himself was admitted, but with only four attendants; and the Earls of Lancaster and Hereford were not even allowed to lodge their followers in the town, but with insolent words were quartered a mile off, to their own great discontent and that of the country-folk.

Montacute meanwhile held counsel with Sir Robert Eland, the governor of the castle, who told him that far without the walls lay a cave, whence a subterraneous gallery led into the keep of Nottingham Castle. It was believed to have been made for a means of escape in the days of Danish inroads, and it was still practicable to lead a body of men through it. Montacute undertook the enterprise on the 19th of October, 1330. Whether the King crept through the passage, or only joined Montacute after he emerged on the stairs, is not certain; but together, and with a troop of armed men behind them, they broke into the room where Mortimer was consulting with the Earl of Lincoln, and seized upon his person. The Queen, nearly undressed, hurried out of the next room, and Edward stood behind the door, that she might not see him; but she guessed that he was present, and cried out piteously, “Fair son, have pity on gentle Mortimer!” Her cries were unheeded, and Mortimer was, in the early morning, sent off to the Tower of London, while all Nottingham rang with shouts of joy.

Edward broke up the parliament, and summoned a new one to meet at Westminster, where he called Mortimer to account for a tissue of such horrible crimes that one alone would have secured his condemnation. The Peers were asked what his sentence should be, and they all answered that he ought to die like his victim, Hugh le Despenser, who had not had a moment to speak in his own defence. Perhaps Edward dreaded to hear his mother’s crimes disclosed, for he forbade the confession to be made known of two of the accomplices in his father’s murder, and caused Mortimer to die a traitor’s death at once at Tyburn--the inaugurating execution at that melancholy spot. This hasty sentence stood Mortimer’s family in good stead; for, as there was no sentence of attainder, they continued to hold the earldom of March. Edward little thought that the grandson of his father’s murderer would become the heir to his own throne.

The Pope wrote to Edward to intercede with him for his mother, but the exhortation was hardly needed, for he showed the most delicate and filial respect throughout for her name, and what truth and necessity compelled him to declare against her, he charged on the evil influence of Mortimer. Her grief and despair threw her into an absolute fit of madness at the time of Mortimer’s execution, and she continued subject to fits of distraction for many years after. She was shut up in Risings Castle, and respectfully attended upon by a sufficient train; her son visited her from time to time, but she never saw any others of her family; and when, after twenty-eight years, she died, she chose to be buried in the church of the Gray Friars, at Newgate, where lay the remains of Mortimer.

While these events were taking place in England, one of the great spirits of the time was passing away at Cardross, in Scotland. Robert the Bruce lay on his death-bed, and, calling for his nobles, bade them swear fealty to his infant son, and appointed Randolph, Earl of Moray, as regent for the child; for Sir James Douglas he reserved a yet dearer, closer charge. Long ago, as he lay on his bed at Rachrin, had he vowed to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem; but before he had given rest to his country, the deadly sickness had seized on him which was cutting him off in his fifty-fifth year. He therefore entreated that Douglas would carry his heart, to fulfil his vow, instead of himself, and that, making his way to Jerusalem, he would lay it finally in the Holy Sepulchre.