The History of England from the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) The Fall Of Edward II. And The Rule Of Isabella And Mortimer byTout, T.F. (M.A.)
During the deliberations of the parliament of
York, the truce with Bruce expired, and forthwith came the news
that the Scots had once more crossed the border. On this occasion
Bruce raided the country from Carlisle to Preston, burning every
open town on his way, though sparing most of the religious houses.
At Cartmel, Lancaster, and Preston, favoured monastic buildings
alone stood entire amidst the desolation wrought by the Scots. No
effective opposition was offered to them, and after a three weeks'
foray, they recrossed the Solway.
As in 1314 and 1318, the restoration of order was followed by an
attempt to put down Bruce. In August, 1322, Edward assembled his
forces at Newcastle and invaded Scotland. Berwick was
unsuccessfully besieged and the Lothians laid waste. The Scots
still had the prudence to withdraw beyond the Forth, and avoid
battle in the open field. By the beginning of September, pestilence
and famine had done their work on the invaders. Unable to find
support in the desolate fields of Lothian, the, English returned to
their own land, having accomplished nothing. The Scots followed on
their tracks, but with such secrecy that they penetrated into the
heart of Yorkshire before Edward was aware of their presence. In
October they suddenly swooped down on the king, when he was staying
at Byland abbey. Some troops which accompanied him were encamped on
a hill between Byland and Rievaux. They were attacked by the Scots
and defeated; their leader, John of Brittany, was taken prisoner,
and Edward only avoided capture by a precipitate flight from Byland
to Bridlington. All Yorkshire was reduced to abject terror, and
Edward's hosts, the canons of Bridlington, removed with all their
valuables to Lincolnshire, and sent one of their number
to Bruce at Malton to purchase immunity for their estates. After a
month the Scots went home, leaving famine, pestilence, and misery
in their train. The Despensers thus proved themselves not less
incompetent to defend England than Thomas of Lancaster.
As the state afforded no protection, each private person had to
make the best terms he could for himself. Even the king's
favourite, Louis of Beaumont, the illiterate Bishop of Durham,
entered into negotiations with the Scots, while the Archbishop of
York issued formal permission to religious houses of his diocese to
treat with the excommunicated followers of Bruce. Not only timid
ecclesiastics, but well-tried soldiers found in private dealings
with the Scots the only remedy for their troubles. After the Byland
surprise, Harclay, the new Earl of Carlisle, the victor of
Boroughbridge, and the warden of the marches, dismissed his troops,
sought out Bruce at Lochmaben, and made an arrangement with him, by
which it was resolved that a committee of six English and six
Scottish magnates should be empowered to conclude peace between the
two countries on the basis of recognising him as King of Scots.
There was great alarm at court when Harclay's treason was known. A
Cumberland baron, Anthony Lucy, was instructed to apprehend the
culprit, and forcing his way into Carlisle castle by a stratagem,
captured the earl with little difficulty. In March, 1323, Harclay
suffered the terrible doom of treason. He justified his action to
the last, declaring that his only motive was a desire to procure
peace, and convincing many of the north-countrymen of the innocence
of his motives. To such a pass had England been reduced that those
who honestly desired that the farmers of 'Cumberland should once
more till their fields in peace, saw no other means of gaining
their end than by communication with the enemies of their
country.
The disgrace of Byland and the tragedy of Carlisle showed that
it was idle to pretend to fight the Scots any longer. Negotiations
for peace were entered upon; Pembroke and the younger Despenser
being the chief English commissioners. Peace was found impossible,
as English pride still refused to recognise the royal title of King
Robert, but a thirteen years' truce was arranged without any
difficulty. This treaty of 1323 practically concluded the Scottish
war of independence. Bruce then easily obtained papal recognition of
his title, though English ill-will long stood in the way of the
remission of his sentence of excommunication. His martial career,
however, was past, and he could devote his declining years to the
consolidation of his kingdom and the restoration of its material
prosperity. He reorganised the national army, built up a new
nobility by distributing among his faithful followers the estates
of the obstinate friends of England, and first called upon the
royal burghs of Scotland to send representatives to the Scottish
parliament. He had made Scotland a nation, and nobly redeemed the
tergiversation and violence of his earlier career.
Among Harclay's motives for treating with the Scots had been his
distrust of the Despensers. As generals against the Scots and as
administrators of England, they manifested an equal incapacity.
Their greed and insolence revived the old enmities, and they proved
strangely lacking in resolution to grapple with emergencies.
Nevertheless they ruled over England for nearly five years in
comparative peace. This period, unmarked by striking events, is,
however, evidence of the exhaustion of the country rather than of
the capacity of the Earl of Winchester and the lord of Glamorgan.
The details of the history bear witness to the relaxation of the
reins of government, the prevalence of riot and petty rebellion,
the sordid personal struggles for place and power, the weakness
which could neither collect the taxes, enforce obedience to the
law, nor even save from humiliation the most trusted agents of the
government.
The Despensers' continuance in power rested more on the absence
of rivals than on their own capacity. The strongest of the royalist
earls, Aymer of Pembroke, died in 1324. As he left no issue, his
earldom swelled the alarmingly long roll of lapsed dignities. None
of the few remaining earls could step into his place, nor give
Edward the wise counsel which the creator of the middle party had
always provided. Warenne was brutal, profligate, unstable, and
distrusted; Arundel had no great influence; Richmond was a
foreigner, and of little personal weight, and the successors of
Humphrey of Hereford and Guy of Warwick were minors, suspected by
reason of their fathers' treasons. The only new earl was Henry of
Lancaster, who in 1324 obtained a partial restitution of his
brother's estates and the title of Earl of Leicester. Prudent,
moderate, and high-minded, Henry stood in strong
contrast to his more famous brother. But the tragedy of Pontefract
and his unsatisfied claim on the Lancaster earldom stood between
Henry and the government, and the imprudence of the Despensers soon
utterly estranged him from the king, though he was the last man to
indulge in indiscriminate opposition, and Edward dared not push his
powerful cousin to extremities. In these circumstances, the king
had no wise or strong advisers whose influence might counteract the
Despensers. His loneliness and isolation made him increasingly
dependent upon the favourites.
The older nobles were already alienated, when the Despensers
provoked a quarrel with the queen. Isabella was a woman of strong
character and violent passions, with the lack of morals and
scruples which might have been expected from a girlhood passed
amidst the domestic scandals of her father's household. She
resented her want of influence over her husband, and hated the
Despensers because of their superior power with him. The favourites
met her hostility by an open declaration of warfare. In 1324 the
king deprived her of her separate estate, drove her favourite
servants from court, and put her on an allowance of a pound a day.
The wife of the younger Hugh, her husband's niece, was deputed to
watch her, and she could not even write a letter without the Lady
Despenser's knowledge. Isabella bitterly chafed under her
humiliation. She was, she declared, treated like a maidservant and
made the hireling of the Despensers. Finding, however, that nothing
was to be gained by complaints, she prudently dissembled her wrath
and waited patiently for revenge.
The Despensers' chief helpers were among the clergy. Conspicuous
among them were Walter Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter, the treasurer,
and Robert Baldock, the chancellor. The records of Stapledon's
magnificence survive in the nave of his cathedral church, and in
Exeter College, Oxford; but the great builder and pious founder was
a worldly, greedy, and corrupt public minister. So unpopular was he
that, in 1325, it was thought wise to remove him from office.
Thereupon another building prelate, William Melton, Archbishop of
York, whose piety and charity long intercourse with courtiers had
not extinguished, abandoned his northern flock for London and the
treasury. But the best of officials could do little to help the
unthrifty king. Edward was so poorly respected that he could not
even obtain a bishopric for his chancellor. On two occasions the
envoys sent to Avignon, to urge Baldock's claims on vacant sees,
secured for themselves the mitre destined for the minister. In this
way John Stratford became Bishop of Winchester and William
Ayermine, Bishop of Norwich. Edward had not even the spirit to show
manifest disfavour to these self-seeking prelates, but his inaction
was so clearly the result of weakness that it involved no
gratitude, and the two bishops secretly hated the ruling clique, as
likely to do them an evil turn if it dared. Nor were the older
prelates better contented or more loyal. The primate Reynolds was
deeply irritated by Melton's appointment as treasurer. Burghersh,
the Bishop of Lincoln, was a nephew of Badlesmere, and anxious to
avenge his uncle. Adam Orleton, Bishop of Hereford, was a dependant
of the Mortimers, who took his surname from one of their
Herefordshire manors. Forgiven for his share in the revolt of 1322,
he cleverly contrived in 1324 the escape of his patron, Roger
Mortimer of Wigmore, from the Tower. The marcher made his way to
France, but his ally felt the full force of the king's wrath. He
was deprived of his temporalities, and, when the Church spread her
ægis over him, the court procured the verdict of a Herefordshire
jury against him. Thus the impolicy of the crown combined the
selfish worldling with the zealot for the Church in a common
opposition. Like Isabella, Orleton bided his time, and Edward
feared to complete his disgrace.
In such ways the king and the Despensers proclaimed their
incapacity to the world. The Scottish truce, the wrongs of Henry of
Lancaster, the humiliation of the queen, the alienation of the old
nobles, the fears of greedy prelates,—each of these was
remembered against them. Gradually every order of the community
became disgusted. The feeble efforts of Edward to conciliate the
Londoners met with little response. Weak rule and the insecurity of
life and property turned away the heart of the commons from the
king. It was no wonder that men went on pilgrimage to the little
hill outside Pontefract, where Earl Thomas had met his doom, or
that rumours spread that the king was a changeling and no true son
of the great Edward. But though the power of the king and the Despensers
was thoroughly undermined, the absence of leaders and the general
want of public spirit still delayed the day of reckoning. At last,
the threatening outlook beyond the Channel indirectly precipitated
the crisis.
The relations of France and England remained uneasy, despite the
marriage of two English kings in succession to ladies of the
Capetian house. The union of Edward I. and Margaret of France had
not done much to help the settlement of the disputed points in the
interpretation of the treaty of Paris of 1303, and the match
between Edward II and his stepmother's niece had been equally
ineffective. The restoration of Gascony in 1303 had never been
completed, and in the very year of the treaty a decree of the
parliament of Paris had withdrawn the homage of the county of
Bigorre from the English duke. Within the ceded districts, the
conflict of the jurisdictions of king and duke became increasingly
accentuated. Having failed to hold Gascony by force of arms, Philip
the Fair aspired to conquer it by the old process of stealthily
undermining the traditional authority of the duke. Appeals to Paris
became more and more numerous. The agents of the king wandered at
will through Edward's Gascon possessions, and punished all loyalty
to the lawful duke by dragging the culprits before their master's
courts. The ineptitude which characterised all Edward's
subordinates was particularly conspicuous among his Gascon
seneschals and their subordinates. While the English king's
servants drifted on from day to day, timid, without policy, and
without direction, the agents of France, well trained, energetic,
and determined, knew their own minds and gradually brought about
the end which they had clearly set before themselves. In vain did
bitter complaints arise of the aggressions of the officers of
Philip. It was to no purpose that conferences were held, protocols
drawn up, and much time and ink wasted in discussing trivialities.
Neither Edward nor Philip wished to push matters to extremities. To
the former the policy of drift was always congenial. The latter was
content to wait until the pear was ripe. It seemed that in a few
more years Gascony would become as thoroughly subject to the French
crown as Champagne or Normandy.
Philip the Fair died in 1314, and was followed in rapid
succession by his three sons. The first of these, Louis X., had,
like
Edward II., to contend against an aristocratic reaction, and died
in 1316, before he could even receive the homage of his
brother-in-law. A king of more energy than Edward might have
profited by the difficult situation which followed Louis' death.
For a time there was neither pope, nor emperor, nor King of France.
But Philip V. mounted the French throne when his brother's widow
had given birth to a daughter, and continued the policy of his
predecessors with regard to Gascony. Again the disputes between
Norman and Gascon sailors threatened, as in 1293, to bring about a
rupture. The ever-increasing aggressions of the suzerain culminated
in summoning Edward's own seneschal of Saintonge to appear before
the French king's court. Edward neglected to do homage, alleging
his preoccupation in the Scottish war and similar excuses. But the
threatened danger soon passed away, for again the interests and
fears of both parties postponed the conflict. In avoiding any
alliance with the Scots, the French king showed a self-restraint
for which Edward could not but be grateful. In 1320 Edward
performed in person his long-delayed homage at Amiens, though his
grievances against his brother-in-law still remained unredressed.
In 1322 the death of Philip V. renewed the troublesome homage
question in a more acute form.1
1 For the relations of Edward II. and Philip V.
see Lehugeur, Hist. de Philippe le Long, pp. 240-66
(1897).
The obligation of performing homage to a rival prince weighed
with increasing severity on the English kings at each rapid change
of occupants of the throne of France. The same pretexts were again
brought forward, as sufficient reasons for postponing or evading
the unpleasant duly. But before the question was settled a new
source of trouble arose in the affair of Saint-Sardos, which soon
plunged the two countries into open war. The lord of Montpezat, a
vassal of the Duke of Gascony, built a bastide at
Saint-Sardos upon a site which he declared was held by himself of
the duke, but which the French officials claimed as belonging to
Charles IV. The dispute was taken before the parliament of Paris,
which decided that the new town belonged to the King of France.
Thereupon a royal force promptly took possession of it. Irritated
at this high-handed action, the lord of Montpezat invoked the aid
of Edward's seneschal of Gascony, who attacked and destroyed the
bastide and massacred the French garrison.1 The answer of
Charles the Fair to this aggression was decisive. Gascony was
pronounced sequestrated and Charles of Valois, the veteran uncle of
the king, was ordered to enforce the sentence at the head of an
imposing army.
1 See for this affair Bréquigny,
Mémoire sur les différends entre la France et
l'Angleterre sous Charles le Bel, in Mém. de l'Acad. des
Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, xli. (1780), pp. 641-92. M.
Déprez is about to publish a Chancery Roll of Edward II.
which includes all the official acts relating to it.
Thus, in the summer of 1324 England and France were once more at
war. But while England remonstrated and negotiated, France acted.
Norman corsairs swept the Channel and pillaged the English coasts.
Ponthieu yielded without resistance. Early in August, Charles of
Valois entered the Agenais, and on the 15th Agen opened its gates.
The victorious French soon appeared before La Réole, where
alone they encountered real resistance. Edmund, Earl of Kent, who
had made vain attempts to procure peace at Paris, had been sent in
July to act as lieutenant of Aquitaine. He had not sufficient force
at his command to venture to meet the Count of Valois in the open
field, and threw himself into La Réole. The rocky height,
crowned with a triple wall, and looking down on the vineyards and
cornfields of the Garonne, defied for weeks the skill of the
eminent Lorrainer engineers who directed Charles of Valois' siege
train. But when Charles announced to Edmund that he would carry the
town by assault, if not surrendered within four days, the timid
earl signed a truce from September to Easter, and was allowed to
withdraw to Bordeaux. A mere fringe of coast-land still remained
faithful to the English duke, when Charles of Valois went back to
Paris, having victoriously terminated his long and chequered
career. Before the end of 1325 he died.1
1 Petit, Charles de Valois, pp. 207-15
(1900), gives the fullest modern account of these transactions.
The truce involved a renewal of the negotiations. Bishop
Stratford and William Ayermine, the astute chancery clerk, were
commissioned in November, 1324, to treat with the French, but made
little progress in their delicate task. At this stage Isabella,
inspired probably by Adam Orleton, came forward with a proposal.
She besought her husband to allow her to visit her brother, the
French king, and use her influence with him to procure peace and
the restitution of Gascony. With the strange infatuation which
marked all the acts of Edward and his favourites, Isabella's
proposal was adopted, and in March, 1325, the queen crossed the
Channel and made her way to her brother's court. The summer was
consumed in negotiating a treaty, by which Edward's French fiefs
were to be restored to him in their integrity, as soon as he had
performed homage to the new king. Meanwhile the English garrison of
Gascony was to withdraw to Bayonne, leaving the rest of the duchy
in the hands of a French seneschal. Edward agreed to these terms,
and put Gascony into Charles's hands. He was still unwilling to
compromise his dignity by performing homage, while the Despensers
were mortally afraid of his going to France, lest it should remove
him from their influence. Isabella then made a second suggestion.
She persuaded her brother to excuse the personal homage of her
husband, if Edward would invest his young son, Edward, with Gascony
and Ponthieu, and send him in his stead to tender his feudal duly.
This also was agreed to by the English king, and in September the
young prince, then about thirteen years old, was appointed Duke of
Aquitaine and Count of Ponthieu, and despatched to join his mother
at Paris, where he performed homage to his uncle.
It was expected that Gascony and Ponthieu would then be
restored, and that the queen and her son would return to England.
But Charles IV. perpetrated a clever piece of trickery which showed
how far off a real settlement still was. He "restored" to Edward
those parts of Gascony which had been peacefully surrendered to him
in the summer, and announced that he should keep the Agenais and La
Réole, as belonging to France by right of Charles of Valois'
recent conquest. Bitterly mortified at this treachery, Edward took
upon himself the title of "governor and administrator of his
firstborn, Edward, Duke of Aquitaine, and of his estates". By this
technical subtlety, he thought himself entitled to resume the
control of the ceded districts and resist the attack which was
bound to follow hard upon the new breach. Once more Charles IV.
pronounced the sequestration of the duchy, and despite Edward's
efforts, his power crumbled away before the peaceful advent of the
French troops, charged with the execution of their master's
edict.
Long before the last Gascon castles had opened their gates to
Charles's officers, new developments at Paris
made the question of Aquitaine a subordinate matter. Despite the
breach of the negotiations, Isabella and her son still tarried at
the French court. In answer to Edward's requests for their return,
she sent back excuse after excuse, till his patience was fairly
exhausted. At last, on December 1, 1325, Edward peremptorily
ordered his wife to return home, and warned her not to consort with
certain English traitors in the French court. The Duke of Aquitaine
was similarly exhorted to return, with his mother if he could, but
if not, without her. The reference to English traitors shows that
Edward was aware that Isabella had already formed that close
relation with the exiled lord of Wigmore which soon ripened into an
adulterous connexion. Inspired by Roger Mortimer, Isabella declared
that she was in peril of her life from the malice of the
Despensers, and would never go back to her husband as long as the
favourites retained power. A band of the exiles of 1322 gathered
round her and her paramour, and sought to bring about their
restoration as champions of the loudly expressed grievances of the
queen, and the rights of her young son. The king's ambassadors at
Paris, Stratford and Ayermine, recently made Bishop of Norwich by a
papal provision which ignored the election of Robert Baldock the
chancellor, united themselves with the queen and the fugitive
marcher. With them, too, was associated Edmund of Kent, who was
allowed by the treaty to return from Gascony through France. Bishop
Stapledon, who had accompanied the queen to France, was so alarmed
at the turn events were taking, that he fled in disguise to reveal
his suspicions to the king. Thus England, already exposed to a
danger of a French war, was threatened with the forcible overthrow
of the Despensers and the reinstatement of Isabella by armed
invaders.
By the spring of 1326 the scandalous relations of Isabella and
Mortimer were notorious all over England and France. Charles IV.
grew disgusted at his sister's doings, and gave no countenance to
her schemes. Isabella accordingly withdrew from Paris with her son
and her paramour, and made her way to the Netherlands. There she
found refuge in the county of Hainault, whose lord, William II, of
Avesnes, was won over to support her by a contract to marry the
Duke of Aquitaine to his daughter Philippa. A large advance from
Philippa's marriage portion was employed in hiring a troop of
knights and squires of Hainault and Holland. John of Hainault,
brother of the count, took joint command of this band with Roger
Mortimer. The ports of Holland and Zealand, both of which counties
were united with Hainault under William II.'s rule, offered ample
facilities for their embarkation.
On September 23, 1326, the queen and her followers took ship at
Dordrecht in Holland. Next day the fleet cast anchor in the port of
Orwell, and that same day the expedition was landed and marched to
Walton, where it spent the first night on English soil. The gentry
of Suffolk and Essex flocked to the standard of the queen, who
declared that she had come to avenge the wrongs of Earl Thomas of
Lancaster and to drive the Despensers from power. Thomas of
Brotherton, the earl marshal, made common cause with the invaders,
and Henry, Earl of Leicester, hastened to associate himself with
the champions of his martyred brother. A great force of native
Englishmen swelled the queen's host, and reduced to insignificance
the little band of Hainaulters and Hollanders. There was no
resistance. Isabella marched to Bury St. Edmunds, "as if on a
pilgrimage," and thence to Cambridge, where she tarried several
days with the canons of Barnwell. From Cambridge she moved on to
Baldock, where she despoiled the chancellor's manors and took his
brother captive. At Dunstable, her next halt, she was on a great
highway, within thirty-three miles of London.
On hearing of his wife's landing, Edward threw himself on the
compassion of the Londoners, but met with so cold a reception that
early in October he withdrew to Gloucester. Besides the chancellor
and the two Despensers, the only magnates of mark who remained
faithful to him were the brothers-in-law, Edmund, Earl of Arundel,
and Earl Warenne. On Edward's retreat from London, Bishop Stratford
made his way to the capital, where he joined with Archbishop
Reynolds in a hollow pretence of mediation. The Londoners gladly
welcomed the queen's messengers and soon rose in revolt in her
favour. They plundered and burnt the house of the Bishop of Exeter,
who fled in alarm to St. Paul's. Seized at the very door of the
church, Stapledon was brutally murdered by the mob in Cheapside,
where his naked body lay exposed all day. Immediately after this,
Reynolds fled in terror to his Kentish estates, where he waited to see
which was the stronger side. The king's younger son, John of
Eltham, a boy of nine, who had been left behind by his father in
the Tower, was proclaimed warden of the capital.
On hearing of Edward's flight to the west, Isabella went after
him in pursuit. On the day of Stapledon's murder, she had advanced
as far as Wallingford, where, posing as the continuer of the policy
of the lords ordainers, she issued a proclamation denouncing the
Despensers. Thence she made her way to Oxford, where Bishop
Orleton, who had already joined her, preached a seditious sermon
before the university and the leaders of the revolt. Taking as his
text, "My head, my head," he demonstrated that the sick head of the
state could not be restored by all the remedies of Hippocrates, and
would therefore have to be cut off. This was the first intimation
that the insurgents would not be content with the fall of the
Despensers. From Oxford, Isabella and Mortimer hurried to
Gloucester, whence Edward had already fled to the younger
Despenser's palatinate of Glamorgan. From Gloucester, they passed
on through Berkeley to Bristol, where the elder Despenser, the Earl
of Winchester, was in command. The feeling of the burgesses of the
second town in England was so strongly adverse that the earl was
unable to defend either the borough or the castle. In despair he
opened the gates on October 26 to the queen, and was immediately
consigned, without trial or inquiry, to the death of a traitor.
After proclaiming the Duke of Aquitaine as warden of the realm
during his father's absence, the queen's army marched on Hereford,
where Isabella remained, while the Earl of Leicester, accompanied
by a Welsh clerk, named Rhys ap Howel, was sent, with part of the
army to hunt out the king.
After his flight from Gloucester, Edward had wandered through
the Welsh march to Chepstow, whence he took ship, hoping to make
sail to Lundy, which Despenser had latterly acquired, and perhaps
ultimately to Ireland. But contrary winds kept him in the narrows
of the Bristol Channel, and on October 27 he landed again at
Cardiff. A few days later he was at Caerphilly, but afraid to
entrust himself to the protection of the mightiest of marcher
castles, he moved restlessly from place to place in Glamorgan and
Gower, imploring the help of the tenants of the Despensers, and
issuing vain summonses and commissions that no one obeyed.
Discovered by the local knowledge of Rhys ap Howel, or betrayed by
those whom the Welshman's gold had corrupted, Edward was captured
on November 16 in Neath abbey. With him Baldock and the younger
Despenser were also taken. On November 20 the favourite was put to
death at Hereford, while Baldock, saved from immediate execution by
his clerkly privilege, was consigned to the cruel custody of
Orleton, only to perish a few months later of ill-treatment. To
Hereford also was brought Edmund of Arundel, captured in
Shropshire, and condemned to suffer the fate of the Despensers. The
king was entrusted to the custody of Henry of Leicester, who
conveyed him to his castle of Kenilworth, where the unfortunate
monarch passed the winter, "treated not otherwise than a captive
king ought to be treated".
It only remained to complete the revolution by making provision
for the future government of England. With this object a parliament
was summoned, at first by the Duke of Aquitaine in his father's
name, and afterwards more regularly by writs issued under the great
seal. It met on January 7, 1327, at Westminster, and, after the
York precedent of 1322, contained representatives of Wales as well
as of the three estates of England. Orleton, the spokesman of
Mortimer, asked the estates whether they would have Edward II. or
his son as their ruler. The London mob loudly declared for the Duke
of Aquitaine, and none of the members of parliament ventured to
raise a voice in favour of the unhappy king, save four prelates of
whom the most important was the steadfast Archbishop Melton. The
southern primate, deserting his old master, declared that the voice
of the people was the voice of God. Stratford drew up six articles,
in which he set forth that Edward of Carnarvon was incompetent to
govern, led by evil counsellors, a despiser of the wholesome advice
of the "great and wise men of the realm," neglectful of business,
and addicted to unprofitable pleasures; that by his lack of good
government he had lost Scotland, Ireland, and Gascony; that he had
injured Holy Church, and had done to death or driven into exile
many great men; that he had broken his coronation oath, and that it
was hopeless to expect amendment from him.
Even the agents of Mortimer shrunk from the odium of decreeing
Edward's deposition, and the more prudent course was preferred of
inducing the king to resign his power into his son's hands. An
effort to persuade the captive monarch to abdicate before his
estates, was defeated by his resolute refusal. Thereupon a
committee of bishops, barons, and judges was sent to Kenilworth to
receive his renunciation in the name of parliament. On January 20,
Edward, clothed in black, admitted the delegates to his presence.
Utterly unmanned by misfortune, the king fell in a deep swoon at
the feet of his enemies. Leicester and Stratford raised him from
the ground, and, on his recovery, Orleton exhorted him to resign
his throne to his son, lest the estates, irritated by his
contumacy, should choose as their king some one who was not of the
royal line. Edward replied that he was sorry that his people were
tired of his rule, but that being so, he was prepared to yield to
their wishes, and make way for the Duke of Aquitaine. On this, Sir
William Trussell, as proctor of the three estates, formally
renounced their homage and fealty, and Sir Thomas Blount, steward
of the household, broke his staff of office, and announced that the
royal establishment was disbanded. Thus the calamitous reign of
Edward of Carnarvon came to a wretched end. His utter inefficiency
as a king makes it impossible to lament his fate. Yet few
revolutions have ever been conducted with more manifest
self-seeking than that which hurled Edward from power. The angry
spite of the adulterous queen, the fierce vengeance and greed of
Roger Mortimer, the craft and cruelty of Orleton, the time-serving
cowardice of Reynolds, the stupidity of Kent and Norfolk, the party
spirit of Stratford and Ayermine, can inspire nothing but disgust.
Among the foes of Edward, Henry of Leicester alone behaved as an
honourable gentleman, anxious to vindicate a policy, but careful to
subordinate his private wrongs to public objects. Though his name
and wrongs were ostentatiously put forward by the dominant faction,
it is clear from the beginning that he was only a tool in its
hands, and that the reversal of the sentence of Earl Thomas was but
the pretext by which the schemers and traitors sought to capture
the government for their own selfish ends.
The resignation of the king was promptly reported to parliament.
On January 24 the Duke of Aquitaine was proclaimed Edward III., and
from the next day his regnal years were reckoned as beginning.
Henry of Leicester dubbed him knight, and on January 29 he was crowned
in Westminster Abbey. A few days later the young king met his
parliament. A standing council was appointed to carry on the
administration during his nonage. Of this body the Earl of
Leicester acted as chief, though most of his colleagues were
partisans of Mortimer and the queen. Orleton, who was made
treasurer, continued to pull the wires as the confidential agent of
Isabella and Mortimer. A show of devotion to the good old cause was
thought politic, and therefore the sentences of 1322 were revoked,
so that Earl Henry, restored to all his brother's estates, was
henceforth styled Earl of Lancaster. The commons went beyond this
in petitioning for the canonisation of Earl Thomas and Archbishop
Winchelsea. The revolution was consummated by a new confirmation of
the charters.
Even in the first flush of victory, Isabella and Mortimer were
too insecure and too bitter to allow Edward of Carnarvon to remain
quietly in prison under the custody of the Earl of Lancaster. As
long as he was alive, he might always become the possible
instrument of their degradation. At Orleton's instigation the
deposed king was transferred in April from his cousin's care to
that of two knights, Thomas Gurney and John Maltravers. He was
promptly removed from Kenilworth and hurried by night from castle
to castle until, after some sojourn at Corfe, he was at last
immured at Berkeley. Every indignity was put upon him, and the
systematic course of ill-treatment, to which he was subjected, was
clearly intended to bring about his speedy death. But the robust
constitution of the athlete rose superior to the persecutions of
his torturers, and to save further trouble he was barbarously
murdered in his bed on the night of September 21. Piercing shrieks
from the interior of the castle told the peasantry that some dire
deed was being perpetrated within its gloomy walls. Next day it was
announced that the lord Edward had died a natural death, and his
corpse was exposed to the public view that suspicion might be
averted. He was buried with the state that became a crowned king in
the Benedictine Abbey Church of St. Peter, Gloucester. A few years
later the piety or remorse of Edward III. erected over his father's
remains the magnificent tomb which still challenges our admiration
by the delicacy of its tabernacle work and the artistic beauty of
the sculptured effigy of the murdered monarch.
The tragedy of Edward's end soon caused his
misdeeds to be forgotten, and ere long the countryside flocked on
pilgrimage to his tomb, as to the shrine of a saint. By a curious
irony the burial place of Edward of Carnarvon rivalled in
popularity the chapel on the hill at Pontefract where Thomas of
Lancaster had perished by Edward's orders. Like his cousin, Edward
became a popular, though not a canonised, saint. From the offerings
made at his tomb the monks of Gloucester were in time supplied with
the funds that enabled them to recast their romanesque choir in the
newer "perpendicular" fashion of architecture, and embellish their
church with all the rich additions which contrast so strangely with
the grim impressiveness of the stately Norman nave. There was only
one impediment to the people's worship of the dead king. The
secrecy which enveloped his end led to rumours that he was still
alive, and the prevalence of these reports soon proved almost as
great a source of embarrassment to his supplanters, as his living
presence had been in the first months of their unhallowed
power.
It was not easy for Isabella and Mortimer to restore the waning
fortunes of England at home and abroad. We shall see that it was
only by an almost complete surrender that they procured peace with
France and a partial restoration of Gascony. In Scotland they were
even less fortunate. Robert Bruce, though broken in health and
spirits, took up an aggressive attitude, and it was found necessary
to summon the feudal levies to meet on the border in the summer of
1327 in order to repel his attack. While the troops were mustering
at York, a fierce fight broke out in the streets, between the
Hainault mercenaries, under John of Hainault, and the citizens. So
threatening was the outlook that it was thought wise to send the
Hainaulters back home. From this accident it happened that the
young king went forth to his first campaign, attended only by his
native-born subjects. The Scots began operations by breaking the
truce and overrunning the borders. The campaign directed against
them was as futile as any of the last reign, and the English,
though three times more numerous than the enemy, dared not provoke
battle. This inglorious failure may well have convinced Mortimer
that the best chance of maintaining his power was to make peace at
any price. Early in 1328, the negotiations for a treaty were
concluded at York. During their progress, Edward, who was at York to
meet his parliament, was married to Philippa of Hainault.
The Scots treaty was confirmed in April by a parliament that met
at Northampton. All claim to feudal superiority over Scotland was
withdrawn; Robert Bruce was recognised as King of Scots, and his
young son David was married to Joan of the Tower, Edward III.'s
infant sister. This surrender provoked the liveliest indignation,
and men called the treaty of Northampton the "shameful peace," and
ascribed it to the treachery or timorousness of the queen and her
paramour. But it is hard to see what other solution of the Scottish
problem was practicable. For many years Bruce had been de
facto King of Scots, and any longer hesitation to withhold the
recognition which he coveted would have been sure to involve the
north of England in the same desolation as that which he had
inflicted before the truce of 1322. But the founder of Scottish
independence was drawing near to the end of his career. His health
had long been undermined by a terrible disease which the
chroniclers thought to be leprosy. He died in 1329, and on his
death-bed he bethought him of how he, who had shed so much
Christian blood, had never been able to fulfil his vow of crusade.
Accordingly he entreated James Douglas, his faithful
companion-in-arms, to go on crusade against the Moors of Granada,
taking with him the heart of his dead master. Douglas fulfilled the
request, and perished in Spain, whither he had carried the heart of
the Scottish liberator. With the accession of the little David
Bruce, new troubles began for Scotland, though danger from England
was for the moment averted by the English marriage and the treaty
of Northampton.
The ill-will produced by the "shameful peace" spread far and
wide the profound dislike for Mortimer which pity for the fate of
Edward had first aroused in the breasts of Englishmen. The greedy
marcher was at no pains to make himself popular. Holding no great
office of state, he strove to rule through his creatures Orleton,
the treasurer, and the hardly less subservient chancellor, Bishop
Hotham of Ely, or through lay partisans such as Sir Oliver Ingham
and Sir Simon Bereford. But his best chance of remaining in power
was through the besotted infatuation of the queen-mother, whose
relations with him were not concealed from the public eye by any
elaborate parade of secrecy. He still posed as the
inheritor of the tradition of the lords ordainers, and never failed
to put as much of the responsibility of his rule as he could on
Henry of Lancaster and the old baronial leaders. But with all his
force and energy, he was too narrowly selfish and grasping to take
much trouble to frame an elaborate policy. As an administrator he
was as incompetent as either Thomas of Lancaster or the
Despensers.
Mortimer's chief care was to add office to office, and estate to
estate, in order that he might establish his house as supreme over
all Wales and its march. Besides his own enormous inheritance, he
ruled over Ludlow and Meath in the right of his wife, Joan of
Joinville, the heiress of the Lacys. He had inherited Chirk and the
other lands of his uncle, the sometime justice of Wales, who had
died in Edward II.'s prison; and he procured for himself a grant of
his uncle's old office for life, so that, while as justice of Wales
he lorded it over the principality, as head of the Mortimers he
could dominate the whole march. To complete his ascendency in the
march became his great ambition. He obtained the custody of
Glamorgan, the stronghold of his sometime rival, Hugh Despenser the
younger. To this were added Oswestry and Clun, the Fitzalan march
in western Shropshire, forfeited to the crown by the faithfulness
with which Edmund Fitzalan, the late Earl of Arundel, had laid down
his life for Edward II. Minor grants of lands, offices, wardships,
and pensions were constantly lavished upon him by the complacency
of his mistress. In Ireland he received complete palatine
franchises over Trim, Meath, and Louth, along with the custody of
the estates of the infant Earl of Kildare, the chief of the
Leinster Geraldines. He extended his connexions by marrying his
seven daughters to the heads of great families, and where possible
to men of marcher houses. He soon numbered among his sons-in-law
the representatives of the Charltons of Powys, the Hastingses of
Abergavenny, now the chief heirs of Aymer of Pembroke, the Audleys
of the Shropshire march, the Beauchamps of Warwick, the Berkeleys,
the Grandisons, and the Braoses. Anxious to extend his dignity as
well as his power, he procured his nomination as Earl of the March
of Wales, "a title," says a chronicler, "hitherto unheard of in
England". As earl of the march and justice of the principality, he
ruled the lands west of the Severn with little less than regal
sway. His banquets, his tournaments, his pious foundations even,
dazzled all men by their splendour.
Mortimer was created Earl of March in the parliament held in
October, 1328, at Salisbury, where John of Eltham was made Earl of
Cornwall and James, Butler of Ireland, Earl of Ormonde. His
assumption of this new title at last roused the sluggish
indignation of Earl Henry of Lancaster, who felt that his own
marcher interests were compromised, and bitterly resented the vain
use made of his name, while he was carefully kept without any
control of policy. He refused to attend the Salisbury parliament,
though he and his partisans mustered in arms in the neighbourhood
of that city. Civil war seemed imminent, and Mortimer's Welshmen
devastated Lancaster's earldom of Leicester, but Archbishop Meopham
(who had lately succeeded Reynolds in the primacy) managed to patch
up peace. Not long afterwards Lancaster was smitten with blindness,
and was thenceforth unable to take an active part in public
affairs. Mortimer again triumphed for the moment, and, with cruel
malice, excepted Lancaster's confidential agents from the pardon
which he was forced to extend to the earl. His success over
Lancaster was materially facilitated by the weakness of Edmund,
Earl of Kent, who, after joining with Earl Henry in his refusal to
attend the Salisbury parliament, deserted him at the moment of the
capture of Leicester by the Earl of March. But his treachery did
not save him from Mortimer's revenge. In conjunction with the
queen, Mortimer plotted to lure on Earl Edmund to ruin. Their
agents persuaded him that Edward II. was still alive and imprisoned
in Corfe castle, and urged him to restore his brother to liberty.
The earl rose to the bait, and agreed to be party to an
insurrection which was to restore Edward of Carnarvon to freedom,
if not to his throne. When Kent was involved in the meshes, he was
suddenly arrested in the Winchester parliament of March, 1330, and
accused of treason. Convicted by his own speeches and letters, he
was adjudged to death by the lords, and on March 19 beheaded
outside the walls of the city.
The fall of Kent convinced Lancaster that his fate would not be
long delayed, and that his best chance of saving himself and his
cause lay in stirring up the king to energetic action against the
Earl of March. The death of his uncle irritated Edward, who at
seventeen was old enough to feel the degrading nature of his
thraldom, and was eager to govern the kingdom of which he was the
nominal head. In June, 1330, the birth of a son, the future Black
Prince, to Edward and Philippa seems to have impressed on the young
monarch that he had come to man's estate. Lancaster accordingly
found him eager to shake off the yoke of his mother's paramour. The
opportunity came in October, 1330, when the magnates assembled at
Nottingham to hold a parliament there. Isabella and Mortimer took
up their abode in the castle, where Edward also resided. Suspicions
were abroad, and the castle was closely guarded by Mortimer's Welsh
followers. Sir William Montague, a close friend of Edward's, was
chosen to strike the blow, and lay outside with a band of troops.
Some rumour of the plot seems to have leaked out, and on October 19
Mortimer angrily denounced Montague as a traitor, and accused the
king of complicity with his designs. But Montague was safe outside
the castle, and, when evening fell, all that Mortimer could do was
to lock the gates and watch the walls. William Eland, constable of
the castle, had been induced to join the conspiracy, and had
revealed to Montague a secret entrance into the stronghold. On that
very night, Montague and his men-at-arms effected an entrance
through an underground passage into the castle-yard, where Edward
joined them. They then made their way up to Mortimer's chamber,
which as usual was next to that of the queen. Two knights, who
guarded the door, were struck down, and the armed band burst into
the room. After a desperate scuffle, the Earl of March was secured.
Hearing the noise, the queen rushed into the room, and though
Edward still waited without, cried, with seeming consciousness of
his share in the matter, "Fair son, have pity on the gentle
Mortimer". Her entreaties were unavailing, and the fallen favourite
was hurried, under strict custody, to London.
Edward then issued a proclamation announcing that he had taken
the government of England into his own hands. Parliament, prorogued
to Westminster, met on November 26, and its chief business was the
trial of Mortimer before the lords. He was charged with accroaching
to himself the royal power, stirring up dissension between Edward
II and the queen, teaching Edward III. to regard the Earl of
Lancaster as his enemy, deluding Edmund of Kent into believing that
his brother was alive and with procuring his execution, accepting
bribes from the Scots for concluding the disgraceful peace, and
with perpetrating grievous cruelties in Ireland. The lords,
imitating the evil precedents set during Mortimer's time of power,
condemned him without trial or chance of answer to the accusations
made against him. On November 29 the fallen earl was paraded
through London from his prison in the Tower to Tyburn Elms, and was
there hanged on the common gallows. His vast estates were forfeited
to the crown. His accomplice, Sir Simon Bereford, suffered the same
fate; but Sir Oliver Ingham, another of his associates, was
pardoned. Edward discreetly drew a veil over his mother's shame.
Mortimer's notorious relations with her were not enumerated in the
accusations brought against him, and Isabella, though removed from
power and stripped of some of her recent acquisitions, was allowed
to live in honourable retirement on her dower manors. Scrupulously
visited by her dutiful son, she wandered freely from house to
house, as she felt disposed. She died in 1358 at her castle of
Hertford, in the habit of the Poor Clares—a sister order of
the Franciscans. The later tradition that she was kept in
confinement at Castle Rising has only this slender foundation in
fact that Castle Rising was one of her favourite places of abode.
With her withdrawal from public life Edward III.'s real reign
begins.
