A.D. 1314-1327. EDWARD DETHRONED AND MURDERED.

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number of English fugitives, the remains of the Lancastrian faction; and their common hatred of Spenser soon begat a secret friendship and correspondence between them and that princess. Among the rest was young Roger Mortimer, a potent baron in the Welsh marches, who was easily admitted to pay his court to Queen Isabella. The graces of his person and address advanced him quickly in her affections. He became her confidant and counselor in all her measures; and, gaining ground daily upon her heart, he engaged her to sacrifice at last to her passion all the sentiments of honor and of fidelity to her husband. Mortimer lived in the most declared intimacy with her; a correspondence was secretly carried on with the malcontent party in England; and when Edward, informed of those alarming circumstances, required her speedily to return with the prince, she publicly replied that she would never set foot in the kingdom till Spenser was forever removed from his presence and councils-a declaration which procured her great popularity in England, and threw a decent veil over all her treasonable enterprises. She affianced young Edward with Philippa, daughter of the Count of Holland and Hainault; and having, by the assistance of this prince, enlisted in her service nearly 3000 men, she set sail from the harbor of Dort, and landed safely and without opposition on the coast of Suffolk (1326). She was joined by the earls of Kent and Norfolk, and many of the nobility; and Edward, being deserted by his subjects, departed for the West; but, being disappointed in his expectations with regard to the loyalty of those parts, he passed over to Wales, where, he flattered himself, his name was more popular, and which he hoped to find uninfected with the contagion of general rage which had seized the English. The elder Spenser, created Earl of Winchester, was left governor of the castle of Bristol; but the garrison mutinied against him, and he was delivered into the hands of his enemies and executed. The king took shipping for Ireland; but being driven back by contrary winds, he endeavored to conceal himself in the mountains of Wales. He was soon discovered, was put under the custody of the Earl of Leicester, and was confined in the castle of Kenilworth. The younger Spenser also fell into the hands of his enemies, and was executed without any appearance of a legal trial. The queen then summoned, in the king's name, a Parliament at Westminster (Jan. 7, 1327). A charge was drawn up against the king, in which, even though it was framed by his inveterate enemies, nothing but his narrow genius or his misfortunes were objected to him. His deposition was voted; the prince, already declared regent by his party, was placed on the throne; and a deputation was sent to Edward, at Kenilworth, to require his resignation, which menaces and terror

soon extorted from him (Jan. 20). That unfortunate monarch was transferred to Berkeley Castle, and the impatient Mortimer secretly sent orders to his keepers instantly to dispatch him. These ruffians threw him on a bed, held him down violently with a table which they flung over him, thrust into his fundament a red-hot iron, which they inserted through a horn; and though the outward marks of violence upon his person were prevented by this expedient, the horrid deed was discovered to all the guards and attendants by the screams with which the agonizing king filled the castle while his bowels were consuming (Sept. 21). Thus miserably perished, in the 44th year of his age and 21st of his reign, Edward II., than whom it is not easy to imagine a prince less fitted for governing the fierce and turbulent people subjected to his authority.

Obv.: EDWARD'. DEI. GRA. REX. ANGL' Z FRANO'. D. HYB'G. The king standing in a ship (type supposed to relate to the naval victory gained by him over the French fleet off Sluys, A.D. 1340). Rev. IIIC TRANSIENS PER MEDIVM ILLORVU IBAT +. Cross fleury, with a fleur-de-lis at each point, and a lion passant under a crown in each quarter.

CHAPTER X.

HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET CONTINUED.-EDWARD III. AND RICHARD II. A.D. 1327-1399.

§ 1. Accession of EDWARD III. War with Scotland. § 2. Fall of Mortimer. § 3. King's Administration. War with Scotland. Battle of Halidown Hill. § 4. Edward's Claim to the Crown of France. § 5. War with France. § 6. Domestic Disturbances. Affairs of Brittany. § 7. Renewal of the French War. Battle of Crécy. § 8. Captivity of the King of Scots. Calais taken. § 9. Institution of the Garter. War in Guienne and Battle of Poitiers. § 10. Captivity of King John. Invasion of France and Peace of Bretigni. § 11. The Black Prince in Castile. Rupture with France. § 12. Death of the Prince of Wales. Death and Character of the King. § 13. Miscellaneous Transactions of this Reign. §14. Accession of RICHARD II. Insurrections. § 15. Discontents of the Nobility. Expulsion or Execution of the King's Ministers. § 16. Counter-revolution. Ascendency of the Duke of Lancaster. Cabals and Murder of the Duke of Gloucester. § 17. Death of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. Revolt of his Son Henry. Deposition, Death, and Character of the King. § 18. The Wiclifites.

§ 1. EDWARD III., 1327-1377.-AFTER the king's murder a council of regency was appointed by Parliament, and the Earl of Lancaster was made guardian and protector of the king's person, who, at the age of 14, ascended the throne with the title of Edward III. The real power, however, was in the hands of Isa

bella and Mortimer.

The Scots seized the opportunity offered by the unsettled state of the English government to make some devastating incursions into the northern counties. The young king, who had put himself at the head of an army in order to repress them, was near falling into the hands of the enemy. Douglas, having surveyed

exactly the situation of the English camp, entered it secretly in the nighttime, with a body of 200 determined soldiers, and advanced to the royal tent, with the view of killing or carrying off the king in the midst of his army. But some of Edward's attendants, awaking in that critical moment, made resistance; his chaplain and chamberlain sacrificed their lives for his safety; the king himself, after making a valorous defense, escaped in the dark; and Douglas, having lost the greater part of his followers, was glad to make a hasty retreat with the remainder. Soon after, the Scottish army decamped without noise in the dead of night; and, having thus gotten the start of the English, arrived without farther loss in their own country. This inglorious campaign was followed by a disgraceful peace. As the claim of superiority in England, more than any other cause, had tended to inflame the animosities between the two nations, Mortimer, besides stipulating a marriage between Jane, sister of Edward, and David, the son and heir of Robert, consented to resign absolutely this claim, to give up all the homages done by the Scottish Parliament and nobility, and to acknowledge Robert as independent sovereign of Scotland. This treaty was ratified by Parliament, 1328, but was, nevertheless, the source of great discontent among the people.

§ 2. But the fall of Mortimer was now approaching. Having persuaded the Earl of Kent that his brother, King Edward, was still alive, and detained in some secret prison in England, he induced the unsuspicious earl to enter into a conspiracy for his restoration, and then caused him to be condemned by the Parliament, and executed (1330). The Earl of Lancaster, on pretense of his having assented to this conspiracy, was soon after thrown into prison; and many of the prelates and nobility were prosecuted. Mortimer employed this engine to crush all his enemies, and to enrich himself and his family by the forfeitures. He assumed the title of Earl of March, affected a state and dignity equal or superior to the royal; his power became formidable to every one; and all parties, forgetting past animosities, conspired in their hatred of Mortimer. It was impossible that these abuses could long escape the observation of a prince endowed with so much spirit and judgment as young Edward. He communicated his intentions of subverting Mortimer to several nobles; and the castle of Nottingham was chosen for the scene of their enterprise. The queen-dowager and Mortimer lodged in that fortress: the king also was admitted, though with a few only of his attendants; and as the castle was strictly guarded, the gates locked every evening, and the keys carried to the queen, it became necessary to communicate the design to Sir William Eland, the governor, who zealously took part in it. By his direction the king's associates

A.D. 1327-1332.

WAR WITH SCOTLAND.

175

were admitted through a subterraneous passage, which had formerly been contrived for a secret outlet from the castle, but was now buried in rubbish; and Mortimer, without having it in his power to make resistance, was suddenly seized in an apartment adjoining to the queen's. A Parliament was immediately summoned, which condemned him, from the supposed notoriety of the facts alleged against him, without trial, or hearing his answer, or examining a witness; and he was hanged on a gibbet at Tyburn (1330). The queen was confined to her own house at Risings, near London; and though the king, during the remainder of her life, paid her a decent visit once or twice a year, she never was able to reinstate herself in any credit or authority.

§ 3. Edward, having now taken the reins of government into his own hands, applied himself with industry and judgment to redress all those grievances which had proceeded either from want of authority in the crown, or from the late abuses of it. The robbers, thieves, murderers, and criminals of all kinds had, during the course of public convulsions, multiplied to an enormous degree, and were openly protected by the great barons, who made use of them against their enemies. Many of these gangs had become so numerous as to require the king's own presence to disperse them; and he exerted both courage and industry in executing this salutary office. For the next three or four years Edward's attention was engaged with the affairs of Scotland. The wise and valiant Robert Bruce, who had recovered by arms the independence of his country, died soon after the last treaty of peace with England, leaving David, his son, a minor, under the guardianship of Randolph, Earl of Murray, the companion of all his victories. A good deal of discontent had been excited among many of the English nobility by the non-performance of that article of the treaty by which they were to be restored to their estates in Scotland. Under the influence of these feelings they resolved on setting up Edward Baliol, the son of John, who was then residing in Normandy, as a pretender to the Scottish crown; and Edward secretly encouraged Baliol in the enterprise, and gave countenance to the nobles who were disposed to join in the attempt. The arms of Baliol were attended with surprising success; that prince was crowned at Scone (1332); and David, his competitor, was sent over to France with his betrothed wife, Jane, sister to Edward. But Baliol's imprudence, or his necessities, making him dismiss the greater part of his English followers, he was attacked on a sudden near Annan, put to the rout, and chased into England in a miserable condition; and thus lost his kingdom by a revolution as sudden as that by which he had acquired it.