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that he should be kept safe till peace was arranged. But as he was being taken to Wallingford the Earl of Warwick, his deadly foe, seized him by a sudden surprise from the Earl of Pembroke, in whose safeguard he was, and took him before the Earls of Lancaster and Hereford. As he was led to his enemies he cried, "Where are all my riches with which I bought friends, and where are the friends in whom I put my trust? It is my pride, the king's favour, and the court that have brought me to this hopeless pass." He prayed the gentle Earl" Thomas for pity, and some present would have sent him back to Pembroke, but others said, "We have got the wolf by the ears, shall we let him go to hunt him again?" and Earl Thomas bade two Welsh soldiers take him away forthwith and strike off his head, for as he was a Roman citizen and a kinsman of the Earl of Gloucester by marriage they would not put him to a shameful death. So his head was cut off at Blacklow at noonday and borne by a black friar to Edward, June 19, 1312. The king was furious at the murder of his friend and made ready to revenge him. It was only by the good offices of the Earl of Gloucester, the Pope, and the King of France that a civil war was stopped, and the king reconciled to the four earls, Lancaster, Hereford, Warren, and Warwick, October 16, 1313. The birth of his eldest son, November 13, 1312, had delighted Edward, and from that moment he began somewhat to forget his grief for his dead friend.

In 1309 Pope Clement sent a bull to the English bishops saying he had found the Templars in France guilty of heresy, idolatry, murder, and evil living, and ordering the archbishop to see into the state of the Order in England. The English Templars were not proved guilty, but it was thought well to break up the Order in 1312, its property being given to the Knights of St. John, who were still engaged in fighting the Saracens.

3. All this while Brus had been profiting by the divisions in England to win back castle after castle from the English garrisons by stratagem or storm, and at last he beset Stirling so straitly that the governor promised to yield it unless he were relieved by St. John's Day, 1314. Edward was willing to fight the Scots, but Lancaster and his friends, who cared only to hold power, pretended that a Parliament must be called ere the king could lawfully set out, and refused to join his host. Edward, however, made up his mind to save Stirling, and with Gloucester and a great host he faced King Robert, who was by the brook of Bannock, covering the way

to the castle, posted in a strong place which he had honeycombed with pits to stop the English cavalry. On the 23rd

The loss of
Scotland at
Bannockburn,

To Falkirk

d. Reserve.
e. Camp followers.
f. Ground pitted and
staked.

BATTLE OF

BANNOCKBURN.
24th June1314.

A. Clifford.
B. Archers.

C. King Edward with
main body.

June an attempt to relieve the castle was balked by the Scottish spearmen, and King Robert, who was mounted on a little hackney marshalling his men, with his own hand slew a fully-armed English knight who challenged him, parrying his lance-thrust and cleaving his head with his axe. Next morning the English archers began the attack, but the Scottish cavalry drove them back, and the English knights were forced to charge the unbroken squares of pikemen. In the confusion a number of the Scottish camp-followers were seen coming down the hill June 24, 1314. with flags and pikes, and the Englishmen took them for a fresh host, and turned in flight. The Earl of Gloucester was left to die fighting bravely alone, the English king, whose horse was killed under him, was forced out of the fray against his will, and saved by the unselfish courage of Sir Giles of Argentein. The Scots pursued fiercely, killing all they could come up with, and winning great spoil. Stirling yielded, and save Berwick, King Robert now held

the whole realm of Scotland. Nor was he content, but in order to force Edward to acknowledge his independence, he carried the war into Ireland and Wales. Llewelyn Bren rose in 1316, and Sir Gruffydd Llwyd afterward; but the Welsh did not dislike the king, and were easily quieted.

Across the sea things went worse. By the wish of the O'Neils, who passed their own right over to him, Edward of Brus was crowned King of Ireland at Dundalk in 1315. With an army of Irish clansmen and 6000 Scottish soldiers he defeated the English troops of the Pale till he was checked at Athonree, where 11,000 of the O'Connors fell. But his brother Robert came to his help in the fall of the same year, 1317, and the two kings swept through the whole land from Belfast to Killarney with fire and sword. However Robert was soon called home, where he busied himself with the siege of Berwick and raids into North England, and now the English of the Pale under Lord Mortimer defeated, and under John of Birmingham overthrew, the invaders at Faughard, near Dundalk, October 14, 1318, where Edward was slain by John Malpas. The invasion had done great harm to Ireland, by raising fresh feuds, throwing back the settlers into their old lawless habits, and destroying much fertile land.

4. In England Lancaster was more powerful than ever, for the defeat of Bannockburn and the ensuing loss of Scotland had lowered the helpless king in men's eyes, while the death of Gloucester had removed the only unselfish and wise man whose name had weight with the people. Edward's ministers, Walter Reynolds, his old tutor (who had succeeded Robert of Winchelsea as Archbishop of Canterbury), and Hugh the Despenser (son of Hugh the Proud, Montfort's Chief Justiciar, who fell at Evesham) were fair-spoken men, but they were self-seeking and not liked by the barons. So in 1314 Lancaster and his friends made the king dismiss them, and put him on an allowance of £10 a day, insisting that he should live on his own, that is, be content with the regular income of the Crown lands and dues without calling for more money from his people. But Lancaster, though he was now in power, governed no better than Edward or his friends had done before; he would neither do his duty in the Parliament or in the field against the Scots. And all this while the people were suffering from bad seasons, famine, cattle plague, the cruel forays of the Scots, and the lawlessness of the barons and the royal officers. During these evil years wheat

The bad rule

and sudden fall of Lancaster,

1314-1322.

rose to 40s. a quarter, ten times its usual price, and after the dearth

The

"To crush down all the poorer sort in misery and care, The cattle all died suddenly and left the land all bare, And when this plague was stinted of beasts that bear a horn Then God sent down upon the earth a second dearth of corn. One's heart must sure for pity bleed to hear the doleful cry That went up from the poor man's lips, 'For hunger I must die!'"' Decrees went forth stopping the malting of grain because of the lack of barley for bread, and fixing the maximum price for meat and flour and beer and other food. The rich had scarce enough to live on, and were obliged to withhold their usual alms of meat and drink from the poor. people were driven to live on carrion; many were killed by the bands of hungry robbers that roamed about seeking for food, and many were starved to death. At last a third party was formed by the Earl of Pembroke, who had not forgiven Lancaster for the dishonour he did him in seizing Gaveston while under his safeguard: and when Berwick was taken by King Robert, a second peace was patched up between Earl Thomas and the king, by which the Ordinances was agreed to, and a Standing Council of eight bishops, four earls, four barons, and a knight, named. But still nothing was done to better matters, Lancaster kept up a secret understanding with the Scots, who, 20th September 1319, beat the Yorkshire levy under the archbishop in a battle called The Chapter of Mytton, from the number of clergy that were slain there, and Edward had to make a truce with the victors. A quarrel now broke out on the Welsh borders between Roger Mortimer, the grandson of Edward I.'s friend, and the son of Hugh the Despenser, who had married one of Gloucester's sisters. Hereford and Lancaster took Lord Mortimer's part, and at a Parliament in 1321 the Despensers, father and son, were exiled for abusing their influence over the king, for preventing the peers from seeing and speaking to him, for raising civil war and hindering justice. The outlaws left the kingdom, and the younger Despenser fitted out a small fleet of ships and plundered the merchants in the Channel. But they were not long in exile. Lady Badlesmere refused to let Queen Isabel into Leeds Castle in Kent, and slew some of her followers. The barons, disgusted at this insolence, came to help Edward, and Lancaster, who had a quarrel with Lord Badlesmere, did not raise his hand to help him. Leeds soon fell, and Edward passed on to the Welsh marches to punish the Earl of Hereford for his many misdeeds. The Mor

timers were forced to yield, and ere Lancaster, who was now alarmed, could gather his troops the king had won all the strongholds of the Midlands. Still Thomas would not take the king's offer of pardon, but with the Earl of Hereford turned to bay at Borough Bridge, March 16, 1322, where Sir Andrew Harclay, the royal general, won the day, slaying Hereford and taking Thomas himself. The earl was brought to Pomfret, tried by the Peers for treason, and led out by the Gascon soldiers to be beheaded in an old striped coat and broken hat, seated on a white nag, bridleless and saddleless, the people pelting him with mud and mocking him as 66 King Arthur." At a little hill outside the town he was made to dismount and kneel down with his face to the north, "toward his friends the Scots." "King of Heaven, have mercy on me!" he said, "for the king on earth hath forsaken me!" and a headsman from London struck off his head. Eight barons and thirty knights and squires met the same end. In a Parliament at York the Acts against the Despensers were annulled, all the old articles of the Ordinances confirmed, but the new ones set aside as not having been rightly made in full Parliament. It was at the same time laid down solemnly that "all matters to be established for the estate of our lord the king and his heirs, the realm and people, shall be treated, granted, and established in Parliaments by our lord the king, and by the consent of the clergy, earls, and barons, and the commonalty of the realm." The king now had a good chance of governing well, but he left all to his new favourites the Despensers, made a truce with the Scots, angered the Londoners by his stern justice, and let his prisoners escape. The taxes were not paid, the law was not kept, the people in their despair held Earl Thomas for a martyr and a saint, and grew bitter against the careless king and the greedy ministers.

We have many notices of the sufferings of the poor. One song says

"To seek the silver for the king I all my seed have sold,

Whereby my land must fallow lie and learn to idly sleep.
And then they fetched my cattle fair away from out the fold.
When I think on the wealth I've lost I wellnigh fall to weep.
In this way they have made a breed of many a beggar bold,
And all our rye is rotten too and rusty ere we reap.

Yea, all our rye is rusty and rotten in the straw,

By reason of the cruel storms on hillside and on plain.

There wakeneth in this sorry world both Woe and wondering Awe.
It were as good to starve at once as thus to toil in vain.