Edward un kinged and 1327. in a plan for invading England, putting down the ministers, and governing in their stead. The queen's open fondness for Mortimer at length forced her brother Charles to send her out of France, but she went to Hainault, and betrothing her son to the earl's daughter Philippa, got 2000 soldiers from him with which to carry out her plans. Money she had already borrowed from her brother and the Italian bankers in France. In vain Edward wrote kindly to her, urging her return to her duty. In vain he bade his little son make no promise of marriage without his father's consent, but come back to England at once, as you wish to escape our wrath and heavy anger, and love your own welfare and honour." In vain too he called out troops and got Reynolds to excommunicate the invaders. The queen landed at Orwell, 24th September 1326, with Lord Mortimer and the king's brother Edmund, Earl of Kent, declaring that she came to avenge the blood of Earl Thomas and punish the Despensers. She was joined by the fleet sent to stop her, by most of the English barons and bishops, and by the Londoners, bands of whom, called "Riflers," rose, plundered the houses of the king's friends, and murdered the Bishop of Exeter, keeping the city in such disorder that no courts could be held for months. The little Duke of Aquitaine was made Warden of the Realm, and not a hand was raised on his father's behalf. The Despensers, who had fled to the west, were caught, tried, and hanged as traitors. The king, after hiding for a while in Wales, where the yeomen and monks favoured his flight and helped to conceal him, gave himself up, and was sent a prisoner to Kenilworth. At a Parliament at Westminster, Adam of Orleton, Bishop of Hereford, a deadly enemy of the king's and a man without pity or fear, asked those present whether they would have the father or son as their king. Save four bishops all voted for the son. Edward was charged with having been foolishly led by evil counsellors; with neglecting the business of his state, and trifling his time away unbecomingly; with having lost Ireland, Gascony, and Scotland; with harming the Church, and slaying, exiling, and outlawing many great men ; with breaking the oath he made at his crowning to do justice to all, and with having ruined the realm, being incapable of ruling better or of mending his ways. Twenty-four commissioners-earls, barons, abbots, priors, judges, friars, monks, knights, and citizens-were sent to Kenilworth to renounce the homage and fealty they had sworn to the king, who agreed to give up his crown to his son and to become a private person again without any manner of royal dignity, 20th January 1327. Eight months afterward the wretched man, who had been moved about as a prisoner from one dungeon to another, was cruelly murdered by Mortimer's orders at Berkeley Castle, 21st September 1327. Edward was justly put from the throne, for he had shown himself unfit to rule, and had brought great misery on his people by his neglect of his duty; but those that had withstood him were selfish and greedy men, who cared only for their own advancement, and they were only successful in the end because the people in their sore distress (for a drought was now killing off the cattle the plague had spared) believed that the bad seasons were sent as a punishment for their rulers' sins, and therefore thinking that any change must be for the better, were willing to have a young king who would learn to govern well. In this reign the power of the Parliament grew greater, and the Estates set about getting the whole control of the taxes into their hands; but it was not yet found possible for the king to rule save by ministers whom he himself chose, though it was settled that he must choose men who would not be hateful to the nation. CHAPTER III. Edward III. of Windsor, 1327-1377. 1. On the 29th January the young king was crowned, and on the 3rd February Parliament met. A Standing Council of fourteen was appointed, Henry, Earl of Lancaster (the late earl's brother and heir), being Warden of the realm, was its chairman; with him were the king's uncles Kent and Norfolk, and his kinsman Warenne, the Bishop of Hereford (who was treasurer), the two archbishops, and the Bishop of Winchester, with six barons. The Parliament then blotted out the sentence against Earl Thomas, and the king confirmed the Charters, gave a full and new charter to London, made decrees for the better maintaining of justice, and set keepers of the peace in every county. In spite, however, of the Warden and the Council all real power lay in the hands of the queen-mother and of Mortimer, who kept a guard of 180 knights and lived in such state that his own son warned him he was behaving like a May-day king. In 1328 the Scots war broke out again, and Edward, with his mother and Mortimer, at the head of 8000 knights and squires, 30,000 men-at-arms, horse and foot, and 24,000 archers, Mortimer's rule. marched north to drive back the Scots, who The Shameful had already got into England. The Scottish Peace, 1327-1328. army and its ways of warfare are thus described by one who saw them: "The Scots are bold, hardy, and well inured to war. When they make their inroads into England they march from twenty to twenty-four miles without halting night or day, for they are all horsed save the camp followers. Knights and squires on large bay horses, and the common folk on Galloway ponies, which are never tied up or groomed, but turned out straightway after the day's march to graze on the moor or the meadows. They bring no carts with them because of the hills they have to pass, nor do they carry any bread or wine with them, for they are used to such plain living that in time of war they will live many days on halfsodden flesh without bread, drinking spring water instead of wine. They have therefore no need for pots or pans, for they boil the flesh of the cattle in their skins when they have flayed them. Nor do they drive cattle with them, for they are sure to find plenty in the land they are invading. Every man carries under the flaps of his saddle a broad plate of iron, and behind him a little bag of oatmeal. When they have eaten too much of the boiled flesh and feel weak and empty, they set their plate over the fire, mix a little oatmeal with water, and when the plate is heated put some of this paste upon it and make a thin cake like a biscuit, which they eat to comfort their stomachs." In this way the Scots entered England, destroying and burning everything on their way. They were in number 4000 knights and squires and 20,000 soldiers. The king being now old and stricken with leprosy had set as captains over them his renowned nephew Randolf, Earl of Moray, and Sir James Douglas, who was held the bravest and most enterprising knight in the two kingdoms. And the Scots pillaged within five miles of the English host, yet the English could not bring them to battle nor discomfit them. For some time the two armies lay face to face, and one night "Lord William Douglas took with him 200 men-at-arms and suddenly brake into the English host about midnight, crying, 'Douglas! Douglas! ye shall all die, thieves of England!' And they slew ere they ceased 300 men, some in their beds, some half ready; and Douglas struck his horse with the spurs and came to the young king's own tent, always crying 'Douglas!' and cut asunder two or three cords thereof with his sword." The English guard rallied and saved the king; however, Douglas got back unharmed to his own folk. At last the Scots army stole away during the night, and the next day the English found their camp empty, save that there were "more than 500 slaughtered oxen lying there which they had killed, as they could not have driven them fast enough to take them with them, and more than 300 kettles made of hide with the hair outside, full of meat and water, hung on the fires ready for boiling, and more than 1000 spits of wood with meat on them for roasting, and over 10,000 pair of worn-out brogues of undressed hide which the Scots had left." The English, who had been half starved as the country was stripped so bare, got a good meal that day, but they could not push on further. So the young king came back with sorrow and without honour, but men said "that the Scots could have been brought to battle if Mortimer had not betrayed his lord, taking meed and money from the Scots to the intent that they might get away privily by night without fighting." Soon after [March 17, 1328] was made the Shameful Peace at Northampton, by which Edward gave up all claims over Scotland, promised to marry his sister Joan of the Tower to David, King Robert's son, and agreed to give back the Scottish crown jewels, while the Scots were to pay £20,000 for the hurt they had done the English by their raids. 2. This peace was made by the queen-mother and the Earl of March, and it displeased the English barons, who were already disgusted at the evil life these two led and at their greed, for they held all the estates of the Despensers and the most part of the Crown lands. It was not worth while to have overthrown former favourites to be ruled by a fresh one. Lancaster tried to get the king's uncles to rise against Mortimer. And they promised him help, but left him in the lurch at the last, and he was obliged to make his peace with March. However, the Earl of Kent did not escape, for he was tried, condemned, and beheaded, March 19, 1330, by reason of certain letters which he had written to his brother, whom he believed to be still alive in Corfe Castle. But Edward was now married to Philippa of Hainault, Mortimer is overthrown, October 20, 1330. and felt himself old enough to rule alone; he therefore readily listened to Lancaster and his friends, who showed him the misdeeds of his mother and Mortimer, and begged him to end their ill rule. Accordingly on 19th October 1330 the young king suddenly broke into the queen-mother's room at Nottingham, by a secret passage which had been left un guarded, and arrested the Earl of March as a traitor, though Isabel prayed him to "have mercy upon her gentle Mortimer." The captive earl was soon tried and found guilty of the murder of Edward II., of taking upon himself the rule of the realm against law and right, of robbing the king of the money paid by the Scots, and of other crimes, and was put to death as a traitor. The queen-mother was sent to Castle Rising, where she spent many years quietly in safe keeping. The young king now for a while gave himself up to pleasure. There were splendid tournaments held at Dartmouth, Stepney, and Cheapside. At the second the king and fifteen knights challenged all comers for three days, riding through the city to the lists in kirtles and cloaks of green cloth lined with red silk, embroidered all over with arrows in gold, their squires following in white kirtles with the right sleeves green and gold-embroidered like their masters. In the third, in Cheapside, the king and fifteen knights appeared masked in Tartar dresses, with long furred gowns and tall caps, every knight having on his right hand a masked lady dressed in a gown of red velvet with a white camlet cape, who led him by a silver chain fastened to his wrist, while sixty squires in one livery went before, with a band of musicians playing trumpets and other instruments, as the company rode two and two through the city. 3. In 1328 Robert the Brus had died, and his son's Council would not fulfil the promises he had made to give back to the English nobles who had lands in Scotland the estates they had lost. The disinherited lords, the Earl of Athole, the Earl of Buchan, Lord Liddesdale, Lord Percy, Talbot, and others, at last chose as their leader Edward Balliol, son of King John, and landed at Kinghorn, in Fife, August 7, 1332, being in all 500 mounted men and 3000 on foot. Yet Balliol totally overthrew the Scottish Regent, Donald, Earl of Mar, at Dupplin Moor, August 12, and taking Perth, was crowned at Scone, 24th September. To win Edward's favour he agreed to hold Scotland of him and to give him Berwick. The party of King David, however, were not crushed; they sent the little Scotland, king out of the way of danger to be brought up in France, and by a surprise at Annan, 25th December, drove Balliol into England. Here, however, he got help from King Edward, who now openly joined in the war. Archibald Douglas, the new Warden for David, was beaten and slain at Halidon Hill by Tweed, July 19, with a dreadful Edward Balliol wins and loses 1332-1339. |
