EDWARD II.
1307–1327.

The reign of Edward II. affords the best apology for any excessive exertions of power which can be laid to the charge of Edward I. It is plain that there existed a readiness on the part of the nobles to take advantage of any weakness in the government of their ruler; on the part of the clergy to reclaim the liberties of their order; and of the lower classes to find a popular hero in every opponent of the government. It would seem indeed that there was no alternative between a strong and practically despotic government and anarchy. It was not till the feudal barons of England had had their fill of anarchy in the Wars of the Roses, and had destroyed themselves, that constitutional government, in our sense of the word, had a chance of existence, and our sympathies are constantly divided between the Church and barons, whose efforts alone promised freedom, and the power of the encroaching ruler, who alone ensured order. For the weakling who could secure neither one nor the other we can feel no sympathy. In the reign of Edward II. we feel as if we had fallen back again to the time of his grandfather. The great question at issue throughout is the same—Shall foreigners, or indeed any other king-chosen favourites, supersede the national oligarchy of great barons? The constant prominence of this question (which in the present reign was further embittered by the personal character of one at least of the favourites) renders it very difficult to distinguish the part played by real patriotic demands for good government and for constitutional limits to the royal power. It is pretty clear that the favourites were the chief cause of the disturbances of the reign; but, on the other hand, the evident advantages offered by some of the baronial claims, and the love of the populace, who ranked even Lancaster with its saints, compel us to believe that these turbulent disturbers of the peace were worthy of some sympathy.

When the late King died in the neighbourhood of Carlisle, he believed that the war with Scotland would have been carried on by his son, of whom he was very fond; while he thought he had secured him from that danger which he had already foreseen would beset his reign, by insisting on the dismissal of his favourite, Piers Gaveston. Gaveston was a young man of Gascon or Basque origin, of greater refinement apparently than the rough barons of England, their equal, if not their superior, in martial exercises, and possessing those courtly tastes for music and the arts which marked the young King. But Edward disappointed his father’s hopes. He had already (before his father had insisted on the dismissal of Gaveston) gone so far as to beg for him, though in vain, the royal county of Ponthieu. On his father’s death he immediately recalled him. A hasty and ineffectual march into Scotland, where Aymer de Valence was left as lieutenant, was all that came of the great preparations at Carlisle, and the King’s mind seemed to be occupied in lavishing favours on his friend. He gave him the Earldom of Cornwall, hitherto an appanage of some royal prince. He seized the property of Walter, Bishop of Lichfield, who in the late reign had opposed him in his office as treasurer, and bestowed it on Gaveston; and after that young man had, by his ostentation, by his success in the lists, and by a reckless use of his happy gift of applying nicknames, excited the anger of the great nobles, Edward was foolish enough, on leaving England to do homage for his French dominions, to leave him as Governor of the country. Consequently, no sooner was he crowned than the Barons demanded in Parliament the dismissal of the favourite. The demand could not be refused, and Edward promised to accede to it, but proved at the same time how determined he was to evade his promise, by not only bestowing fresh grants on Gaveston, but by appointing him Lord Deputy of Ireland. There for a year he reigned with almost royal power.

The quarrel thus begun became the chief question of the reign. All other matters, even the conquest of Scotland, were subordinated to it; and while it was continuing, Bruce was quietly subduing fortress after fortress, and subjugating the whole south of Scotland. In the following year, the King still further showed his untrustworthiness by receiving Gaveston back in England. He met him with great marks of affection at Chester, having probably had recourse already to that dangerous expedient, a Papal dispensation from his promises. In fact, again like his grandfather, Edward found it expedient throughout his reign to keep on very friendly terms with the Pope, and to back his authority by the undefined power which the Head of the Church still wielded. It has been seen how even his great father was unable to resist this temptation. Clement V., an obsequious servant of the French King, and reigning at Avignon, was very different from the formidable Boniface VIII. There was no difficulty in persuading him to renew the old alliance with the sovereign which placed the Church at his mercy. Moreover, at this time he was anxious, in the interests of his master, to procure Edward’s co-operation in the unprincipled destruction of the order of the Temple. Philip IV. of France, urged by an avaricious desire to confiscate the vast property of this order, had set on foot the most extraordinary reports of their licentiousness and blasphemy. In October 1307, all their establishments were laid hands on, the inmates imprisoned, their wealth confiscated. He then, in union with the Pope, begged all his neighbours to adopt a similar course. Edward II. consented, and in January 1308, all the Templars in England were imprisoned. They were tried by the Church on the accusation of the Pope. In France, torture, and the skill of Philip’s lawyers, had produced certain confessions, on which the King acted, and the Order was there destroyed, its Grand Master, James de Molé, being burnt as a heretic. In England, not even torture, which was now first used,[55] could produce any important revelations. The inquiries lasted till 1311. Eventually, certain supposed proofs of heterodoxy having been produced, some of the Knights were confined in monasteries, the Order suppressed, and their property given to the Hospitallers.

The effect of Gaveston’s return, and the renewal of Papal influence, was of course to increase the discontent, till, on the 27th of July, at a Parliament held at Stamford, the King was compelled to give his consent to a statute of reform. By this the first Statute of Westminster was renewed, the undue power exercised by the constables of the royal castles, and the extortions of the officers of the royal household, were checked; all old taxes upon wool and hides beyond the legal customs were removed; while, at the same time, a general letter was directed to the Pope, begging him to abstain from his exactions. The storm continued to rise. Very shortly after this, the great Earls of Lancaster, Lincoln, Warwick, and others, refused to appear at a meeting at York, if Gaveston were present. A meeting summoned in London at the beginning of the following year met with no better success. The Barons threatened to appear in arms if they appeared at all. The King, in fear, concealed Gaveston for a time; the Barons then indeed came, but came only to demand a complete reformation in the government, to which the King was compelled to give his consent. The precedent in his grandfather’s reign was then followed. From the present March to Michaelmas of the following year the government was placed in the hands of a commission of twenty-one members, who were to produce ordinances of general reform. Pending the production of these ordinances, some preliminary articles were at once established. For the payment of the King’s debts grants were to be recalled, and his expensive housekeeping was to be limited. To satisfy the national feeling, and in the hope of lightening the taxes, the Italian house of the Frescobaldi, who had hitherto farmed them, was to be deprived of that advantage, and Englishmen alone were to be employed in their collection; and before all things, the charters of liberty were to be observed.

Hoping, probably, to gain popularity for himself and his favourite, and to be thus able to get rid of the Barons’ interference, Edward determined on an expedition to Scotland; but the great Barons, on the plea that they were busied with their ordinances, refused to accompany him. Some of his immediate adherents, such as Gloucester, Warrenne, his half-brother, Thomas, Earl of Norfolk,[56] and Gaveston, alone went with him. His hopes of gaining popularity by victory were disappointed. The Scotch retired before him. Though Gaveston crossed the Forth, he could not bring on an engagement; and when the English retreated, the Scotch hung upon their rear, and pursued their advantages into the county of Durham. In his necessity, the King was driven to illegal actions. He appropriated the property of the Earl of Lincoln and of the Bishop of Durham, and taxed the province of Canterbury. The Parliament, therefore, was in no improved temper when Edward, leaving Gaveston in the protection of Lady de Vescy, went to meet it in London in October. The Ordinances were there produced. In addition to the articles already granted, there were others which seem to explain the policy of the opposition, and to show the chief forms of misgovernment at that time prevalent. No war was to be carried on without consent of Parliament;—taken in connection with the conduct of Bohun and Bigod in the last reign, with the abstention of the Barons from the war with Scotland, and with the treaty between Bruce and Lancaster, which will be afterwards mentioned, this seems to show that the Barons desired a complete settlement of England before engaging in foreign wars. All taxes upon wool and other exports since the coronation of Edward I. were to be removed:—the Barons seem to have seen that export duties are a tax on production, and are advantageous in the long run to foreign manufactures only. The great officers of state were to be nominated with consent of Parliament; while, to complete the system, the sheriffs, whom Edward I. had made elective, were to be nominated by these great officers; in other words, the royal power was to be restricted by a baronial oligarchy. Parliament was to be held at least once a year, which, considering that his father had held at least three Parliaments a year, seems to show a tendency on the part of the King to arbitrary government. Bad companions were to be removed from the King, and his household reformed. Many of these companions are mentioned by name, and appear to have been foreigners. The King’s tastes had collected around him foreigners connected with display of the arts, and on them he had lavished favours, which excited the national feeling. But the chief attack after all was upon Gaveston, his countryman De Beaumont, and his sister, Lady de Vescy. It was ordered that Gaveston should leave the kingdom by the port of Dover on the 1st of November, and never again enter any territory belonging to the English Crown.[57]

In pursuance of these Ordinances, Gaveston left England, and took refuge in Flanders. But before the year was over he again appeared in England, and joined Edward as he hurried to the North, to be, as he believed, less within the reach of his enemies. At Knaresborough, Edward thought himself strong enough to put forward a proclamation declaring the banishment of Gaveston contrary to the Constitution. He readmitted him to favour, and restored him his property. It was even reported that he was intriguing to secure him a retreat in Scotland. This flagrant violation of his word set all England against the King. The old Archbishop Winchelsea of Canterbury, as in the last reign, became a centre of revolution; he excommunicated Gaveston, while the Barons, at the head of whom were now the Earls of Lancaster and Hereford, proceeded to take active measures. This Lancaster was the eldest son of Edmund, brother of Edward I. His power in England was enormous; he was Earl of five counties. From his father he had received Lancaster and the confiscated estates of De Montfort and Ferrers, the Earldoms namely of Leicester and Derby; he had married the heiress of the De Lacys, and upon the death of the Earl of Lincoln had succeeded to the Earldoms of Lincoln and Salisbury. He began that opposition, which will be frequently mentioned afterwards, of the younger branch of the Plantagenets to the reigning house. Hereford, the son of the great Humphrey Bohun, was the hereditary chief of the baronial party. He had married Elizabeth, the King’s sister. The leaders of the baronial party agreed to repair to those parts of England where they had most influence. Lancaster proceeded northwards so rapidly, that the King had to fly before him, and was nearly captured at Newcastle, where Gaveston’s jewels and horses fell into Lancaster’s hands, and thence he took ship for Scarborough. Lancaster took up his position in the middle of England, while the rest of the baronial party besieged Gaveston in that fortress, where he was soon obliged to surrender. This he did to the Earl of Pembroke, who was no enemy to the King, upon a promise that if he could not come to terms with the Barons he should be restored to Scarborough. Pembroke persuaded him to go with him to his castle at Wallingford, but on the way, during a temporary absence of Pembroke, he was surprised by Warwick, who hated him for having nicknamed him “The Black Dog,” brought to his castle of Warwick, and there beheaded on Blacklow Hill. The King was naturally full of anger, nor did he, in fact, ever forgive Lancaster, but he yielded to necessity, being perhaps in a particularly good humour at the birth of a son and heir; and the Barons, who appeared in arms at Ware, all received pardon in exchange for some slight concessions, among others for the restoration of Gaveston’s jewels. It was not, however, till the close of the following year that the pardons were completed, Edward having in the meantime been to France.

This closes the first period of the reign, but it is plain that the Barons were not yet satisfied. Their chief enemy was removed, but their policy was not accepted. Thus, when in 1314 the King collected a large army, many of them still held aloof, though they sent their forces. If Scotland was to be saved it was time for energetic action. One by one the fortresses had been taken. Stirling still held out, but the Governor promised to capitulate unless relieved before St. John’s Day. By a rapid march Edward reached the place before the fatal day. But Bruce was ready to receive him. He had arranged his troops a little to the south and east of the castle, with his right resting on the little brook Bannockburn. His position was carefully prepared. His front was partly covered by a marsh, and where this ceased and waste land began he had dug shallow pitfalls, with a pointed stake in each, to check the advance of the heavy cavalry, of which the English army then consisted. His left was defended by the cliffs of the castle. Edward Bruce commanded the right, Thomas Randolf the left, Walter Stewart and James Douglas the centre, a small rearguard was commanded by Bruce himself. On the eve of St. John’s the English attempted to secure Stirling, but were beaten back by Randolf. On the morning of the 24th of June, the Abbot of Inchaffray said mass in the Scotch army. As they knelt, Edward exclaimed, “See, they beg pardon.” But Ingram of Umfranville, a Scotch nobleman, by his side, replied, “Yes, sire, but of Heaven, not of you.” Immediately after this the battle began, and already the weight of the English men-at-arms and the flights of arrows were thinning the Scotch ranks, when Bruce fell upon the flank of the archers with his reserve. The fortune of the day was still doubtful, when troops were seen advancing with flying standards behind the Scotch. They were the camp followers of Bruce’s army, who were eagerly pushing forward to watch the fight, but the English believed it was the arrival of reinforcements. They had already found enough to do, and did not wait the new arrivals. The flight soon became a disorderly rout. The horses stumbled and fell in the pitfalls or stuck fast in the morass, and the Scotch pursued ruthlessly. With difficulty the King, under the guidance of the Earl of Pembroke, escaped from the field, and sought safety with a few hundred men in Dunbar, whence he took ship to Berwick. The Earl of Gloucester, with great numbers of Barons and Knights, were left dead upon the field, and during the retreat the Earl of Hereford was captured at Bothwell. He was subsequently exchanged for the Bishop of Glasgow and Bruce’s wife and daughter, who had long been in honourable custody in England.

Edward thought for a moment of renewing the war, and again summoned a fresh army; but the condition of England rendered further action impossible. The discontented Earls attributed the disaster to the refusal of the King to accept the Ordinances, and to the influence of his new favourites Beaumont and Despenser. Money, too, was wanting; and the King’s renewed efforts to obtain it from the clergy by means of the new Archbishop Walter were met with firm opposition. But though war was useless, he would not listen to Bruce’s overtures for peace, obstinately refusing to regard that Prince in any other light than that of a rebel. The North of England was thus left open to the fierce inroads of the Scotch.

The loss of the English prestige was more disastrous than the immediate loss of the battle. The Welsh and Irish thought their opportunity had arrived for obtaining their independence. The Welsh insurrection was indeed subdued after a year of fighting; but it required three years before Ireland was again secured to the English Crown. In that country Edward I. had done but little. It was in its usual state of disorder. The feuds among the Norman adventurers, to whom the conquest had been left, were scarcely less constant or bitter than the wars among the native tribes who surrounded them. Against these tribes, however, they exercised the greatest cruelties. To be an Irishman was to be excluded from all justice, to be classed at once as a robber and murderer. The news of the Battle of Bannockburn induced the Irish to beg the assistance of Bruce, and to offer him their crown. He declined it for himself, but his brother Edward, as ambitious as the Scotch King, accepted the offer. In May 1315 he landed, supported by the great tribe of the O’Niells, and probably also by the Norman Lacys, and was victorious over the combined forces of the Butlers and De Burghs. In vain did Edward send John of Hotham, a clergyman, to attempt some combination among the English and the Irish tribes. The English dislike to the royal lieutenant Butler prevented union, and in May 1316, O’Niell of Tyrone gave up his claim to the Irish throne to Edward Bruce, who was crowned King. But a series of separate attacks upon the natives was more successful. At Athenry the O’Connors were almost exterminated. The arrival of King Robert in Ulster, and a march in winter to Limerick and Dublin, produced no permanent effect, and at length, in 1317, Roger Mortimer, landing with a considerable army, succeeded in establishing some order. The Lacys were executed for treason; the tribes began quarrelling among themselves; and finally, in 1318, Edward Bruce fell in a battle, in which he was defeated by John of Birmingham, in the neighbourhood of Dundalk. The English government was re-established in all its oppression.

Meanwhile, England itself had been in a miserable plight. 1315 and 1316 were years of fearful famine. Prices rose to an unprecedented height. Wheat was sold for 40 marks a quarter; and Parliament still further aggravated the evil by fixing a maximum price, which for a time closed the markets altogether. Terrible diseases followed in the wake of the famine. Again and again the northern counties were mercilessly ravaged; whole districts and dioceses were glad to compound with the Scotch for safety. An attempt was made by a Parliament in this year to re-establish the national prosperity, by obliging the King to accept Lancaster as his chief minister. Lancaster accepted this position, upon the condition that he should be allowed to resign if the King refused to follow his advice, or if men objectionable to Parliament were admitted to the King’s Council. For a moment there was peace. The Ordinances were accepted, and ordered to be published throughout the country. But it was not in the King to act honourably when the fortunes of his favourites were at stake; and Lancaster soon found himself thwarted by the ever-increasing power of the Despensers. It was in vain that Pope John XXII. was called in as a mediator. His legates were equally unsuccessful in their attempts to heal the domestic quarrels of the country and to establish a truce with Scotland. Bruce refused to treat unless he was acknowledged as King. He continued his enterprises, and captured the town of Berwick. The legates could do nothing but put him under the ban of the Church.

At last, in 1318, a crisis was reached. The necessity of union against Scotland began to be obvious. The Despensers were for a time removed from England, and a committee in the interest of Lancaster was appointed to watch the royal action in the intervals of Parliament. This temporary adjustment of affairs in England was followed before long by a truce with Scotland. Edward tried and failed in an attempt to regain Berwick. Another furious invasion had ravaged the North of England, in which no less than eighty-four towns and villages were burned. It was plain that the Scotch were too strong for him. At the same time Bruce was anxious to be rid of the excommunication, and agreed to waive his claim to the obnoxious title. Under these circumstances there was no difficulty in treating.

It soon became evident that the late attempts at compromise between the two parties in England were hollow. The question had to be tried by an appeal to arms. Nothing could induce the King to get rid of his favourites, nor the opposition to act in common with them. It was a little private quarrel, and no great question, which at length blew the smouldering discontent to a flame. The marriage of young Hugh Despenser with the daughter of the Earl of Gloucester, who had died at Bannockburn, had introduced a new and objectionable power into the midst of the Welsh Marches. A quarrel arose about a vacant fief, and the Marchers made common cause against the favourite. The King ordered the question to be settled before his own court, and subsequently before Parliament; but Hereford refused to appear unless the Despensers were removed. As the King vindicated his favourites, and refused to remove them, Hereford marched northward, joined Lancaster, and made a formal agreement with him that there should be no peace till the Despensers were gone. The confederates came in arms to the Parliament held at Westminster, found themselves completely master of the King, presented him with eleven articles of reformation, and procured from him, irregularly, and in spite of the protestations of the clergy, the condemnation and banishment of the Despensers. This condemnation was afterwards formed into a statute, and a pardon given to all those who had compelled the King to grant it.

But though Edward had temporarily yielded, parties were so evenly balanced that very little turned the scale. Young Despenser was serving as admiral on the coast of Kent. He was therefore safe from such personal attacks as Gaveston had been exposed to, and the King was able to repair to the coast and concert measures with him. As the Queen was travelling from London to Canterbury to meet him, she was refused admittance to the royal castle of Leeds by the Governor, Badlesmere. Angry at this insult, the King attacked the castle and hanged the garrison. It seems to have been felt that, in insulting the Queen, the opposition party had gone much too far. The King was able to recall the Despensers, several of the nobles declared that the late sentence of banishment had been procured by overwhelming force; and as he marched towards the West against the Welsh Marches, his brothers, the Earls of Norfolk and Kent, and several others of the greater nobility, followed his standard. By occupying the valley of the Severn, he separated the Marchers from Lancaster, who was collecting troops at Doncaster. Mortimer and most of the Marchers came to terms, and surrendered. Hereford with several others, broke through the royal army, and joined Lancaster. The King’s enemies were now collected into one body, and he rapidly turned against them. To secure support, and probably in pursuance of their usual policy, the rebel lords had entered into a treaty with the Scotch. Bruce was to come to their assistance, but no conquests that he should make were to be permanent. The price of his help was to be peace, and the acknowledgment of his royal title.

On the approach of the King, the rebels fell back, and were intercepted at Boroughbridge by Sir Andrew Harklay, Governor of Carlisle. On attempting to cross the bridge, Hereford was killed from below; while the fords were so strongly guarded that the passage of the river seemed impossible. Lancaster, with some hundred barons and knights, surrendered. He was taken to Pontefract. The accusations against him, including his treasonable compact with Bruce, were stated before a committee of the King’s Barons, and condemnation passed against him unheard. He was beheaded, with all circumstances of indignity. A considerable number of barons suffered either with him or immediately after. Thomas of Lancaster appears to have been an ordinary feudal party leader, with a policy which was directed chiefly to domestic reforms and to the curtailment of the royal power. At the same time, the commonalty of England must have understood that, however selfish that policy might have been, it yet led, in the existing state of society, to improvement in the condition of the lower orders. Not otherwise can we explain the fact that miracles before long were worked at the tomb of Lancaster, and his memory so worshipped and honoured by the people, that the King found it necessary to surround the place of his execution with armed men.

The triumph of the Despensers seemed complete. The elder of them was made Earl of Winchester. Their policy too was at once adopted. The Ordinances were revised, all that could touch the King’s prerogative was cut out. It was ordered especially that hereafter no baronial committee should dictate laws to the King, but he “should make all laws concerning the estate of the crown or of the realm in Parliament, with the consent of the prelates, earls, barons, and universality of the realm.” The two years’ truce being now out, the King marched to Scotland, but, like all others of this reign, the expedition came to nothing. No important battle was fought. Want of food compelled the English to return, followed by their indefatigable enemies. So close were they upon their heels, that at a place called Byland, in Blackmoor Forest, Edward was as nearly as possible surprised. So unexpected was the attack, that treason was at once suspected. To the astonishment of all, Sir Andrew Harklay, who had been made Earl of Carlisle for his services at Boroughbridge, was proved, for some unexplained reason, to have been in correspondence with Bruce. For this treason he was executed. Such constant failures became ridiculous, and at length, Edward, acknowledging Bruce’s title as King, made a treaty with him for thirteen years.

It seemed for the moment that Edward’s troubles were over. The baronial party was crushed, their intercourse with the Scotch had damaged their reputation; the assumption on their part of the sole power of legislation had produced some reaction. The truce with Scotland had secured Edward from danger from the North. There seemed no reason why he and his favourites should not rule almost as they wished. In fact, however, the crisis of his reign was approaching; dangers surrounded him on every side. That the baronial party was still alive and active was soon made evident by a plot to liberate all the political prisoners. The plot indeed miscarried, but Mortimer found means to make good his escape from the Tower, and, taking refuge in France, became a centre round which disaffection might gather. Want of money, too, was a constant source of danger; while the meagre grants made by Parliament showed how general was the national feeling against the government of the favourites. Nor was the Church in much better temper than the Barons and the Commons. On more than one occasion the King had quarrelled with the national Church, which found an active, able, and somewhat unscrupulous champion in Adam Orleton, Bishop of Hereford. This man had been deeply implicated in the baronial movements, had been deprived of his temporalities, and thus became a determined enemy of the King. While quarrelling with the national Church, Edward had shown no vigour in opposing Rome. On two occasions he failed in procuring the election to bishoprics of his nominees, and yielded without a struggle to the authority of the Pope. But submission to Rome had now become a sure way of gaining unpopularity both among clergy and laity. On the death of Boniface VIII., the grandeur and independence of the old Papal system had come to an end, but its constant demands upon the national churches were by no means lessened; and such exactions had become more intolerable now that the ill-gotten wealth which they supplied found its way into the hands of a Pope holding his court at Avignon, a mere creature of the French King: to the old dislike of Papal supremacy there was now added the national dislike of France.

To crown Edward’s difficulties, he found himself involved in a dispute with France. In 1322, Charles IV., son of Philip the Fair, had ascended the throne. It at once became evident that he intended to pursue his father’s policy. He demanded personal homage from King Edward. His ambassadors could procure nothing but the threat that, unless it was paid, Guienne would be seized. In the little town of Saint Sardos, in the Agenois, a quarrel between the people and their English Seneschal brought the matter before the French King. He summoned Edward before his court. It was clear that the old machinery of feudal supremacy was again to be set in motion. War in fact actually began; the French armies captured Ponthieu and the Agenois. It was in vain that King Edward offered justice to the aggrieved inhabitants of Saint Sardos in his own courts, in vain that he sought the mediation of the Pope. He was himself entirely in the hands of the Despensers; and those noblemen, afraid probably to allow the King to get beyond the reach of their personal influence, used all their power to prevent him from going himself to France. It was at last decided that Queen Isabella, the French King’s sister, should go to Paris, and try if she could come to some arrangement. She procured leave for her eldest son Edward to represent his father, and do homage for Guienne. But, when the young Prince reached Paris, he was in no haste to return. In fact, the Queen had fallen in love with Mortimer, and had passed entirely under his influence and that of the other baronial exiles; and under the skilful management of Orleton, Mortimer and his friends were engaged in a great conspiracy. It was in vain that the King perpetually wrote to demand her return. She pleaded personal dread of the Despensers, and complained of the King’s ill-usage. For a woman living in adultery with her husband’s enemy, such charges are perhaps not worth much; but it does seem probable that as a high-spirited woman she had much to bear from the King’s partiality for his favourites, many of whom were men of the lower ranks of life.

The conspiracy was so widespread, and so judiciously managed, that her cause was soon regarded as a national one. Nobles, clergy, and commonalty seem alike to have been in her interest. At the instigation of the Pope, she was obliged to leave Paris, but she took the opportunity of going to Hainault, and there contracting a marriage between her son Edward and the daughter of the Count, and of engaging that Prince to assist her in her enterprise. On the 24th of September she landed with her foreign auxiliaries at the mouth of the Orwell. She was joined by the King’s brothers, by his cousin Henry of Lancaster, and by all the nobility of the East. The Archbishop of Canterbury supplied her with money. London rose in her favour. The skilful management of the Bishop of Hereford won her allies on all sides, and the King found it necessary to fly before her advance. Leaving the Earl of Winchester in Bristol, he tried with young Despenser to reach Lundy Isle in the Bristol Channel. The wind prevented him, and he was driven to land in Wales. Bristol was taken by the Queen without a siege, and the King finally fell into the hands of his pursuers in Wales. He was put into the charge of Henry of Lancaster, brother of the late Earl, at Kenilworth. William Trussel, whom the Queen had made her judge, superintended the trial of the Despensers and their friends, and they were all put to death. In December the Parliament met at Westminster, and swore fealty to the Queen and Prince. The Bishop of Hereford put the question whether Edward or his son should henceforward rule. The assembly declared for the Prince, who accepted the situation, binding himself to six articles, which seem to represent the complaints against the King, and which laid to his charge, the rule of favourites, the contempt of good advice, the loss of Scotland, acts of violence against the clergy and the nobles, and the refusal of justice. Isabella pretended to be angry at this act of deposition, but her pretence could deceive nobody. Finally, a deputation waited upon the unfortunate Edward, and procured his resignation. He was hurried from fortress to fortress, and before long met a cruel death in Berkeley Castle.

Throughout the baronial efforts of the reign, constitutional views and personal interests had been closely interwoven. The single-minded patriotism of Simon de Montfort had been entirely absent. It was the personal ambition of a Prince of the blood, of enormous wealth and influence, which had supplied the baronial party with their first leader. The vindictive feelings of personal dislike had produced an unjustifiable murder of the royal favourite. Success had been followed by an unconstitutional appropriation of all the powers of government. To support their supremacy the Barons had not shrunk from an alliance with their national enemies. To secure a second triumph and revenge they had adopted the cause of an adulterous Queen and her worthless favourite. Yet throughout, the pretence of their action had been the maintenance of the old constitution, and the act which closed the reign was a formal declaration on the part of Parliament of a constitutional right of the nation to depose a sovereign who proved himself unfit for his high position.