The early Plantagenets

by William Stubbs

CHAPTER XII.

EDWARD II.

Character of Edward II.—Piers Gaveston—The Ordinances—Thomas of Lancaster—The Despensers—The King’s ruin and death.

Reactionary
policy of
Edward II.

It is not often that a strong son succeeds a strong father, and where that is the case the result is not always salutary. If Edward I. had left a son like himself, a new fabric of despotism might have been raised on the foundation of strong government which he had laid. Sometimes such alternations have worked well; a weak administration following on a strong one has enabled the nation to advance all the more firmly and strongly for the discipline to which it has been subjected; and a strong reign following a weak one has taught them how to obtain from the strong successor the consolidation of reforms won from the weakness of the predecessor. But more commonly the result has been a simple reaction, and the weak son has had to bear the consequences of his father’s exercise of power, the strong son has had to repair the mischief caused by his father’s weakness. The case of Edward II., however, does not come exactly under either generalization. It was no mere reaction that caused his reign to stand in so strong contrast to his father’s. Instead of following out his father’s plans he reversed them; and his fate was the penalty exacted by hatreds which he had drawn upon himself, not the result of a reaction upon a policy which he had inherited. He cast away at the beginning of the reign his father’s friends, and he made himself enemies where he ought to have looked for friends, in his own household and within the narrowest circle of home.

Personal
tastes and
favorites of
Edward II.

Piers
Gaveston.

Edward II. was the fourth son of Edward I. and Eleanor. John, their eldest boy, had died in 1272; Henry, the next, died in 1274; Alfonso, the third, lived to be twelve years old, and died in 1285. Edward was born in 1284, at Carnarvon, became heir-apparent on his brother’s death, and in 1301 was made Earl of Chester and Prince of Wales. Losing his mother in 1290, he was deprived of the early teaching which might have changed his whole history. His father, although he showed his characteristic care in directing the management of his son’s household, in choosing his companions, and rebuking his faults, was far too busy to devote to him the personal supervision which would have trained him for government and secured his affections. He grew up to dread rather than to love him, hating his father’s ministers as spies and checks upon his pleasures, and spending his time in amusements unbecoming a prince and a knight. His most intimate friend, Piers Gaveston, the son of an old Gascon servant of his father, had been assigned him by the King as his companion, and had gained a complete mastery over him. Gaveston was an accomplished knight, brave, ambitious, insolent and avaricious, like the foreign favorites of Henry III. Edward, although a handsome, strong lad, did not care to practice feats of arms or to follow the pursuits of war. He was fond of hunting and country life, averse to public labor, but splendid to extravagance in matters of feasting and tournament. He was indolent, careless about making new friends or enemies; the only strong feeling which marked him was his obstinate championship of the men whom he believed to be attached to himself. Edward was not a vicious man, but he was very foolish, idle, and obstinate, and there was nothing about him that served to counterbalance these faults or invite sympathy with him in his misfortunes. Edward I. some months before his death had found out this to his sorrow. He saw in the influence that Gaveston had won a sign that the scenes were to be repeated which, as he so well remembered, had marked the stormy period of his own youth. He had banished Gaveston from court and made him swear not to return without his leave. No sooner was he dead than the favorite was recalled, and by his return began that series of miseries which overwhelmed himself first, and then his master, and the consequences of which ran on in long succession until the great house of Plantagenet came to an end.

Peace with
Scotland.

Edward was absent when his father died, but within a few days he had rejoined the army, was received as king, without waiting for coronation, by the English and Scottish lords, and proclaimed his royal peace. One of his father’s last injunctions, that he should promptly and persistently follow up the war, was set aside from the first; Aymer de Valence was made commander and governor of Scotland, and the king himself moved southwards. Another of his father’s commands was set at nought directly after: Gaveston was recalled and raised to the earldom of Cornwall. Walter Langton, the late king’s treasurer and chief minister, was removed from office and imprisoned, and the chancellor also was displaced. Edward I. was not yet buried, and his son’s first parliament, called at Northampton, in October, 1307, was asked to provide money for the expenses of the funeral and the coronation; for already it was said the favorite had got hold of the treasure and was sending it to his foreign kinsfolk. But the jealous nobles were not inclined to hurry matters as yet: the Parliament granted money; Edward I. was solemnly buried; and orders were given to prepare for the coronation in February, 1308.

Marriage of
the king
with Isabella
of France.

The young king had been betrothed to Isabella of France, the daughter of Philip the Fair. He wished that his young bride should be crowned with him, and so crossed over to Boulogne to marry her. The indignation of the lords and of the country at the recall and promotion of Gaveston was fanned into a flame by the announcement that, as it was necessary to appoint a regent during the king’s short absence, the Earl of Cornwall with full and even peculiar powers was appointed to the place. It became clear that the coronation could scarcely take place without an uproar.

The Coronation.

The coronation
oath.

Nor was the question of coronation itself without some difficulties; for Archbishop Winchelsey, although invited by the new king, had not yet returned from banishment, and it was by no means safe for any other prelate to act in his stead. After a little delay Winchelsey consented to empower a substitute; and Edward II. and Isabella were crowned on the 25th of February by the Bishop of Winchester. The form of the coronation oath taken on this occasion, perhaps for the first time in this shape, is worth careful remark. In it the king promises to maintain the ancient laws, to keep the peace of God and the people, and to do right judgment and justice. So much was found in the older formula: but another question was put: “Will you consent to hold and keep the laws and righteous customs which the community of your realm shall have chosen, and will you defend them and strengthen them to the honor of God, to the utmost of your power?” If, as is supposed, these words were new, they seemed to contain a recognition of the fact that the community of the realm had now entered into their place as entitled to control by counsel and consent the legislative action and policy of the king. And so construed they form a valuable comment on the results of the last reign, which had seen the community organized in a perfect parliament and admitted to a share of the responsibilities of government. The lords heard them with interest; even if they had been used at the coronation of Edward I. few were old enough to remember them. They saw in them either an earnest of good government or a lever by which they themselves could remedy the evils of misgovernment, and they proceeded to try the maiden weapon against the favorite whom they now hated as well as feared.

Thomas Earl
of Lancaster.

Gaveston had at first tried to propitiate the more powerful lords of the court, especially Earl Thomas of Lancaster and Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln. The latter was an old and trusted servant of Edward I. Thomas of Lancaster was the son of Earl Edmund of Lancaster, the younger son of Henry III., who had been titular King of Sicily; his mother was Blanche, the Queen Dowager of Navarre, whose daughter by her first husband had married Philip the Fair. He was thus cousin to the king and uncle to the queen; he possessed the great estates with which his grandfather and uncle had founded the Lancaster earldom; he was Earl of Leicester and Derby also, and had thus succeeded to the support of those vassals of the Montforts and the Ferrers who had sustained them in their struggle against the crown; and he was the son-in-law and heir of Henry de Lacy. Distantly following out the policy of Earl Simon, he had set himself up as a friend of the clergy and of the liberties of the people. Personally he was a haughty, vicious, and selfish man, whom the mistakes and follies of Edward II. raised into the fame of a popular champion, and whom his bitter sufferings and cruel death promoted to the rank of a martyr and a saint. But he was not a man of high principle or great capacity, as the result proved.

Gaveston and
the Earls.

Banishment of
Gaveston.

Schism between
the king
and the lords.

Recall of
Gaveston.

No sooner had Gaveston made good his position than by his wanton insolence he incurred the hatred of Earl Thomas, and by the same folly provoked the animosity of the Earl of Pembroke, the king’s cousin, of the Earl of Hereford, his brother-in-law, and of the strong and unscrupulous Earl of Warwick, Guy Beauchamp. Some of them he had defeated in a tournament; nicknames he bestowed on all. One good friend Edward had tried to secure him; he had married him to a sister of Earl Gilbert of Gloucester, the king’s nephew and their common playfellow; but even Earl Gilbert only cared sufficiently for him to try to mediate in his favor; he would not openly take his side. The storm rose steadily. Shortly after the coronation a great council was held in which his promotion was the chief topic of debate, and on the 18th of May he was banished. Edward tried to lighten the blow by appointing him lieutenant of Ireland, and besought the interposition of the King of France and the Pope in his favor. All the business of the kingdom was delayed by the hostility of the king and the great lords. Money was wanted, and could be got only through the Italian bankers, whom the people looked on as extortioners. The divided Scots were left to fight their own battles. Such a state of things could not last long. Edward had to meet his parliament in April 1309. He wanted money, the country wanted reform, but the king desired the return of Gaveston even more than money, and the nation dreaded it more than they desired reform. When the estates met they presented to Edward a schedule of eleven articles: if these were granted they would grant money. The articles concerned several important matters; the exaction of corn and other provisions by the king’s agents under the name of purveyance, the maladministration of justice and usurped jurisdictions; but the most important was one touching the imposts on wine, wool, and other merchandise which had been instituted by Edward I. in 1303, after consultation with the merchants. Edward, however, thought little of the bearing of the request; he proposed to agree to it if he might recall Gaveston. The Parliament refused to listen to him, and he adjourned the discussion until July. Then in a session of the baronage at Stamford he yielded the points in question, and received the promised subsidy. But he had already recalled Gaveston and by one means or another had obtained the tacit consent of all the great lords except the Earl of Warwick. Scarcely two months had elapsed when the storm rose again. The king summoned the earls to council. The Earl of Lancaster refused to meet the Earl of Cornwall. Gradually the parties were reformed as before, and the quarrel assumed larger dimensions. Gaveston was still the great offence, but the plan now broached by the lords extended to the whole administrative work of the kingdom.

Parliament
of 1310.

At the parliament which met in March 1310 a new scheme of reform was promulgated, which was framed on the model of that of 1258 and the Provisions of Oxford. It was determined that the task of regulating the affairs of the realm and of the king’s household should be committed to an elective body of twenty-one members, or Ordainers, the chief of whom was Archbishop Winchelsey. Both parties were represented, the royal party by the earls of Gloucester, Pembroke, and Richmond, the opposition by the earls of Lincoln, Lancaster, Hereford, Warwick, and Arundel. But the preponderance both in number and influence was against Gaveston. They were empowered to remain in office until Michaelmas 1311, and to make ordinances for the good of the realm agreeable to the tenor of the king’s coronation oath. The whole administration of the kingdom thus passed into their hands; and Edward, seeing himself superseded, joined the army now engaged in war with Scotland, and in company with Gaveston continued on the border until the Ordainers were ready to report. During this time the Earl of Lincoln, who had been left as regent, died and the Earl of Gloucester took his place. The Ordainers immediately on their appointment issued six articles directing the observance of the charters, the careful collection of the customs, and the arrest of the foreign merchants; but the great body of the ordinances was reserved for the parliament which met in August 1311.

The Ordinances
of
1311.

Control
of
the king by
the barons.

The famous document or statute known as the Ordinances of 1311 contained forty-one clauses, all aimed at existing abuses. Some of these abuses were old long-standing evils, such as the miscarriage and delay of justice, the misconduct of officials, and the maladministration and misapplication of royal property. Others were founded on the policy of the late reign, which Edward’s ministers had perverted and abused; the Ordainers had no hesitation in declaring the customs duties established by Edward I. to be illegal and contrary to the charter. But two classes of enactments are of more special interest. Four whole clauses were devoted to the punishment of the favorite and of those courtiers who had cast in their lot with him. Gaveston had stolen the king’s heart from his people, and led him into every sort of tyranny and dishonesty; the Lord Henry de Beaumont, to whom Edward had given the Isle of Man, and the lady de Vescy, his sister, were little better; the Friscobaldi, the Italian bankers who received the customs, were the enemies of the people and mere instruments of oppression. Gaveston was to be banished for life, Beaumont to be expelled from the council, and the Friscobaldi to be sent home. Not content with this, the Ordainers further enacted some very important limitations on the king’s power. All the great officers of state were to be appointed with the counsel and consent of the baronage, and to be sworn in parliament; the king was not go to war or to quit the kingdom without the consent of the barons in parliament; parliaments were to be called every year, and the king’s servants were to be brought to justice. The articles thus seem to sum up not only the old and new grievances, but the ideas of government entertained by the Ordainers: they are to punish the favorite, to remedy the points in which the charter has failed, and to restrain the power of the king. The power is only transferred from the king to the barons. There is no provision analogous to the principle laid down by Edward I., that the whole nation shall join in the tasks and responsibilities of national action. The baronage, not the three estates in parliament, are to admonish, to restrain, to compel the king.

The struggle
of the king
in favor of
Gaveston.

Death of
Gaveston.

Edward, after such a struggle as he could make to save Gaveston—a matter which was to him far more important than any of the legal questions involved in the Ordinances—consented that they should become a law, intending perhaps to obtain absolution when it was needed, or to allege that his consent was given under compulsion. He went back into the North, was rejoined by Gaveston, and after some short consideration annulled the ordinances which were made against him. The barons immediately on hearing of this prepared to enforce the law in arms. Winchelsey excommunicated the favorite; the king left no means untried to save him. After a narrow escape at Newcastle, where he lost his baggage and the vast collection of jewels which he had accumulated, many of them belonging to the hereditary hoard of the crown, Gaveston was besieged in Scarborough Castle. In May, 1312, he surrendered, and was conducted by the Earl of Pembroke into the South, to await his sentence in parliament. His enemies, however, were too impatient to wait for justice. The Earl of Warwick carried him off whilst Pembroke was off his guard, and he was beheaded in the presence of the Earl of Lancaster. It is more easy to account for than to justify the hatred which the earls felt towards Gaveston. His conduct had been offensive, his influence was no doubt dangerous, but the actual mischief done by him had been small; neither he nor Edward had exercised power with sufficient freedom as yet to merit such a punishment, and no policy of mere caution or apprehension could excuse the cruelty of the act. It was a piece of vile personal revenge, for insults which any really great man would have scorned to avenge.

Changes in
the administration.

From the time of Gaveston’s death the unhappy king remained for some years the sport or tool of contending parties. He was indeed incompetent to reign alone, or to choose ministers who could rule in his name. The Earl of Pembroke, Aymer de Valence, the son of that William of Lusignan, Henry III.’s half-brother, who was banished in 1258, first attempted to take the reins. Walter Langton had made his peace and become treasurer again; and on the death of Archbishop Winchelsey, in 1313, Walter Reynolds, the king’s old tutor and present chancellor, became primate. But these were not men to withstand the great weight of the opposition. Thomas of Lancaster, who on the death of Henry de Lacy had added the earldoms of Lincoln and Salisbury to the three which he already held, treated on equal terms with the king as a belligerent. The mediation of the clergy brought the two together at the close of 1312, and in the autumn of 1313 a general pacification was brought about, followed by an amnesty and a liberal supply of money in Parliament. The Ordinances were recognized as the law of the land; the birth of an heir to the crown was hailed as a good omen, and better hopes were entertained for the future. The war with Scotland was to be resumed, and with secure peace order in the government must follow.

Successes
of Robert
Bruce in
Scotland.

Battle of
Bannockburn.

Despotism
of
Lancaster.

War of the
Earls.

The Scots had been indeed left alone too long. Short truces, desultory warfare, the defeat of any spasmodic effort on the part of the English by a determined policy on the Scottish side of evading battle, had resulted in a great increase of strength in the hands of Robert Bruce. He had taken advantage of the domestic troubles of England, to recover one by one the strongholds of his kingdom. It is believed that he had intrigued both with Gaveston and with Lancaster. The Castle of Linlithgow came into his hands in 1311, Perth in 1312, Roxburgh and Edinburgh in 1313. Stirling, almost the only fortress left in the hands of the English, was besieged, and had promised to surrender if not relieved before midsummer 1314. Edward prepared to take the command of his forces and to raise the siege. But it was no part of Lancaster’s policy to support him. Taking advantage of the article of the Ordinances which forbade the king to go to war without the consent of the baronage in Parliament, he declined to obey the summons to war until Parliament had spoken. Edward protested that there was no time; Lancaster and his confederate earls stood aloof. The King and Pembroke, with such of the barons as they could influence, and a great host of English warriors, who had no confidence in their commander, met the Scots at Bannockburn, on the 24th of June, and were shamefully defeated. Edward lost all control over the country in consequence. The young Earl of Gloucester, whose adhesion had been a tower of strength to him, fell in the battle; the Earl of Pembroke, who had fled with him, shared the contempt into which he fell. Lancaster was practically supreme; he and his fellows, the survivors of the Ordainers, appointed and displaced ministers, put the king on an allowance, and removed his personal friends and attendants as they chose. In 1316 Lancaster was chosen official president of the royal council; he was already commander-in-chief of the army. He now sought the support of the clergy, forced the king to order the execution of the Ordinances, and conducted himself as an irresponsible ruler. But he had not a capacity equal to his ambition, and his greed of power served to expose his real weakness. He acted as a clog upon all national action; he would not act with the king, for he hated him; he dared not act without him, lest his own failure should give his rivals the chance of overthrowing him. The country, notwithstanding his personal popularity, was miserable under him. The Scots plundered and ravaged as they chose. He would not engage in war. He would not attend parliament or council. The court became filled with intrigue. The barons split up into parties; Edward, rejoicing in the removal of control, launched into extravagant expenditure, and began to form a new party of his own. With general anarchy it is no wonder that private war broke out, or that private war assumed the dimensions of public war. The Countess of Lancaster was carried off from her husband; the Earl of Warenne was accused, and the king was suspected of conniving at the elopement. The earls went to war. Edward forbade Lancaster to stir, and Lancaster of course disobeyed the order. In the midst of all this Robert Bruce, in April 1318, took Berwick.

Conflict of
parties.

Effects of
the loss of
Berwick.

There were now three parties in the kingdom. Lancaster had lost ground, but the king had gained none. The Earl of Pembroke had been gradually alienated, and now aimed at acquiring power for himself. The death of the Earl of Gloucester had left his earldom to be divided between the husbands of his three sisters, Hugh le Despenser, Roger d’Amory, and Hugh of Audley. The division of the great estates was in itself sufficient to create a new division of parties. D’Amory and Pembroke framed a league for gaining influence over the king in conjunction with Sir Bartholomew Badlesmere, a bitter enemy of Lancaster. Hugh le Despenser, the father of the one just mentioned, took on himself to reform the king’s personal party, and was aided by the few barons and bishops whom Edward had been strong enough to promote. The capture of Berwick had one salutary effect: it stopped the private war, and shamed the three parties into a compromise; but the compromise was itself a proof of common weakness. It was concluded in August, 1318, between Lancaster alone on his own part, and ten bishops and fourteen temporal lords as sureties for the king. It provided a new form of council—eight bishops, four earls, and four barons; one other member was to be nominated by Lancaster, who did not deign to accept a seat. But this constitution had no more permanence than the former. The official preponderance was maintained by Pembroke and Badlesmere, and they could do nothing whilst the Earl of Lancaster continued to stand aloof. Edward in 1319 made a vain attempt to recover Berwick, but only gave the Scots an opportunity of evading Yorkshire, and matters grew worse and worse. Men could not help seeing that even Edward himself could not mismanage matters more than they were being now mismanaged, and that, whether incapable or no, he had never yet had a chance of showing what capacity he had.

New favorites
of the king.

The Despensers.

The fate of Gaveston might have warned any who counted on acquiring power by Edward’s favor, and in fact for several years he remained unburdened and uncomforted by a confidential servant. But the waning popularity of Lancaster seemed now to render the position of the king’s friend less hazardous, and an aspirant was found in the younger Hugh le Despenser. He was the grandson of that Hugh le Despenser, the justiciar of the baronial government, who had fallen with Simon de Montfort at Evesham. His father, now the elder Hugh, had been a courtier and minister of Edward I., and had been throughout the early troubles of the reign faithful to Edward II., but he was regarded as a deserter by the barons and had a bitter personal enemy in the Earl of Lancaster. Father and son were alike ambitious and greedy; they showed little regard for either the person or the reputation of their master, and sacrificed his interest whenever it came in competition with their own. The younger Hugh, like Piers Gaveston, was married to one of the heiresses of Gloucester, and had been appointed in 1318 chamberlain to the king under the government of compromise. Edward in his weakness and isolation clung tenaciously to these men; they had inherited some of the political ideas of the barons of 1258, and had perhaps an indistinct notion of overthrowing the influence of Lancaster by an alliance with the commons. The younger Hugh, at all events, from time to time uttered sentiments concerning the position of the king which were inconsistent with the theory of absolute royalty; he had said that the allegiance sworn to the king was due to the crown rather than to the person of the sovereign, and that if the king inclined to do wrong it was the duty of the liegeman to compel him to do right. Another part of the programme of the Despensers involved a more distinct recognition of the right of parliament than had ever been put forth by Lancaster, and it would seem probable that they hoped by maintaining the theory of national action, as stated by Edward I., to strengthen their master’s position, and through it to strengthen their own. So low, however, was the political morality of the time, that the same selfish objects were hidden under widely different professions. The Despensers had sadly miscalculated the force of the old prejudice against court favorites, and did not see how every step in advance made them new enemies. The Earl of Lancaster saw in their unpopularity a chance of recovering his place as a national champion, and a quarrel among the coheirs of Gloucester gave the opportunity for an outcry. Hugh of Audley, who had married Piers Gaveston’s widow, and who was therefore a rival and brother-in-law of Hugh le Despenser, showed some signs of contumacious conduct in the marches. The Earl of Hereford and Roger Mortimer, the Lord of Wigmore, declined to join in the measures necessary to reduce him to order, and refused to meet the Despensers in council; and in a parliament which the king called to meet on the 15th of July, 1321, the whole baronage turned against the favorites. Their attempts to influence the king, their greedy use of the king’s name for their own purposes, the rash words of the younger Hugh, the vast acquisitions of his father, their unauthorized interference in the administration of government, and their perversion of justice were alleged as demanding condign punishment.

Sentence
against the
Despensers.

War
between the
king and
the barons.

Battle of
Boroughbridge.

Execution
of Lancaster.

Ulterior
consequences
of the execution.

The Earl of Hereford, Edward’s brother-in-law, made the charge before the three estates, and the lords, “peers of the land,” as they now perhaps for the first time called themselves, passed the sentence of forfeiture and exile on the two. They were not to be recalled except by consent of parliament, and a separate act was passed to ensure the immunity of the prosecutors and the pardon of those who had taken up arms to overthrow them. This was Lancaster’s last triumph, and it was very short-lived. In the month of October the Lady Badlesmere shut the gates of Leeds Castle against the queen, and Edward raised a force to avenge the insult offered to his wife. All the earls of his party joined him, and the Earl of Lancaster, who hated Badlesmere for his old rivalry, did not interfere to protect him. Finding himself for the first time at the head of a sufficient force, the king determined to enforce order in the marches and to avenge his friends the Despensers. He marched against the border castles of the Earl of Hereford, Audley, and D’Amory. On receiving news of this Lancaster at once discovered his mistake, and called a meeting of his party—the good lords, as they were called—at Doncaster. Both parties showed great energy, but the king had got the start. He obtained from the convocation of the clergy of Canterbury, under the influence of the archbishop, his old tutor, a declaration that the sentence against the Despensers was illegal, and lost no time in forcing his way towards Hereford to punish the earl who had procured it. On his way he defeated the Mortimers. He took Hereford; and having reached Gloucester in triumph, on the 11th of February, recalled his friends to his side. Lancaster and his party were not idle, but they underrated the importance of the crisis and divided their forces. One part was sent to secure the king’s castle of Tickhill, the other, under Lancaster himself, moved slowly towards the south. Edward, in the hope of intercepting the latter division, moved northwards from Cirencester, and the earl, when he reached Burton-on-Trent, did not venture any farther. On the news of his flight his castles of Kenilworth and Tutbury surrendered, and Edward started in pursuit. The unfortunate earl had reached Boroughbridge on his way to his castle of Dunstanburgh, with his enemies close behind him, when he learned that his way was blocked by Sir Andrew Harclay, the governor of Carlisle, who was coming to meet the king. A battle ensued, in which the Earl of Hereford was slain, the forces of Lancaster were defeated, and the earl himself forced to surrender. He was taken on the 17th of March, and on the 22nd was tried by the king’s judges, in the presence of the hostile earls, in his own castle of Pomfret. He was condemned as a traitor. Evidence of his intrigues with the Scots was adduced to give color to the sentence, and he was beheaded at once. So the blood of Gaveston was avenged, and the tide of savage cruelty began to flow in a broader stream, to be avenged, like Lamech, seventy and sevenfold. At once the people, hating the Despensers and misdoubting Edward, declared that the martyr of Pomfret was worthy of canonization; miracles were wrought at his tomb; it was a task worthy of heroes and patriots to avenge his death. His name became a watchword of liberty; the influence which he had labored to build up became a rival interest to that of the crown. First, Edward II. and the Despensers fell before it; then, in the person of Henry IV., the heir of Lancaster swept from the throne the heir of Edward’s unhappy traditions. In the next century the internecine struggle of the Roses wore out the force of the impulse, and yet enough was left to stain from time to time the scaffolds of the Tudors, long after the last male heir of the Plantagenets had perished.

Revocation of
the Ordinances
of 1311.

Some few of the other hostile barons perished in the first flush of the triumph; Badlesmere, in particular, was taken and hanged. Roger D’Amory was dead. The Audleys were spared. About thirty were put to death; many were imprisoned; many more paid fines or forfeitures which helped to enrich the Despensers. Edward was now supreme, and took, as might be expected, the opportunity to undo all that his enemies had tried to do. In his first parliament, held at York, six weeks after the battle, he procured the revocation of the Ordinances, and an important declaration on the part of the assembled estates that from henceforth “matters to be established for the estate of our lord the king and of his heirs, and for the estate of the realm and of the people, shall be treated, accorded, and established in parliaments by our lord the king and by the consent of the prelates, earls and barons, and commonalty of the realm, according as hath been hitherto accustomed.” No ordinances were to be made any more like the Ordinances of 1311. The declaration, intended to secure the crown from the control of the barons, enunciates the theory of constitutional government. And thus the Despensers tried to turn the tables against their foes. But although they determined to annul the Ordinances they did not venture to withdraw the material benefits which the Ordinances had secured. The king, immediately after the revocation, re-issued in the form of an ordinance of his own some of the most beneficial provisions; and the parliament responded by reversing the acts against the favorites and granting money for defence against the Scots.

Campaign
of Edward
in the
North.

Truce with
Scotland.

It was indeed high time, for such had been the course of recent events that the attitude of the two kingdoms were reversed, and England seemed more likely to become tributary to Scotland than to exercise sovereignty over it. Edward’s campaign, was, however, as usual unsuccessful. He narrowly escaped capture amongst the Yorkshire hills, and the whole county was in such alarm that he found it scarcely possible to hold a parliament at York. Nor did his troubles end there. Early in the following year he found that Sir Andrew Harclay, whom he had just made Earl of Carlisle, was negotiating treasonably with Robert Bruce; he was taken, condemned, and executed. Well might the unhappy king throw himself more desperately than ever on the support of the Despensers, for he knew none others, even of those who had served him best or whom he had most richly rewarded, who were not ready to turn and betray him. With the Despensers he was safe, for they, he was sure, could only stand with him and must fall when he fell. One thing, however, he did, in itself wise and just—concluding with Scotland a truce for thirteen years. This was done in May 1323. Prudent as it was, it alienated from him the adventurers who like Henry de Beaumont were intent on carving out for themselves counties in conquered Scotland. Everything was interpreted in the worst sense against him; the men who refused to follow him to war cried out against the peace; and the men who had followed him to war deserted him. Thus when he at last found himself without a rival in the kingdom, it seemed as if he were left alone to discover how great depths of abasement were still to be sounded; new calamities which, whoever really caused them, seemed to result from his own incapacity. In truth, partly owing to Edward’s neglect of the duty of a king, and partly owing to the inveterate animosities following on the death of Lancaster, the tide of public and private hatred was too high to be long resisted. Yet the last impulse came from a quarter from which it might have been least expected and from which it was certainly least deserved.

Position
and policy
of the
queen.

Edward, with all his faults, had been a kind husband and father; but he had trusted his wife less implicitly than she desired to be trusted. In this he was justified by the fact of her close relationship to the Earl of Lancaster, and still more by the jealousy which she displayed towards his confidential ministers. Not only the Despensers but Stapleton, Bishop of Exeter, the Treasurer, and Baldock, the Chancellor, were the objects of her settled aversion; and she lent a ready ear to all who fancied that these men had injured them or stood in the way of their advancement. The court contained many such men, who were ambitious of becoming ministers of state or bishops and ready to take either side for gain; men who hated the Despensers, and who saw their own prospects blighted by the fall of Lancaster. Regularly, as the tide had turned, as the king or the Ordainers had gained or lost, the great offices of state had changed hands, and there was all the grudging, all the personal animosities, which in later ages appear to be inseparable from government by party.

Avarice and
arrogance
of the Despensers.

The events which followed the peace with Scotland brought these influences more strongly into play. The shadows gathered rapidly round the miserable king almost from that hour. The constitutional struggle had ceased. The death of the Earl of Lancaster had rid the Despensers of their most dangerous rival, the revocation of the Ordinances had left the government in their hands, and the death of the Earl of Pembroke in 1324 left them without competitors. The elder Hugh, now made Earl of Winchester, set no limit to his acquisitiveness; he was an old man, and might have considered that it would be more conducive to his son’s welfare to make friends than to multiply estates. The younger Hugh, himself a man of mature years, was made, by his violence and pride, even more conspicuous than his father. Henry of Lancaster, the brother and heir of Earl Thomas, was reduced to practical insignificance by the detention of his brother’s estates in the king’s hands; and although the Despensers sought to purchase his services, and he had no personal dislike to the king, he could not be regarded as a safe and sound pillar of the falling state. The ministers Baldock and Stapleton were faithful men, but neither wise enough to counteract nor strong enough to guide the policy of the favorites.

Summons
to Edward
to do
homage to
the new
French
king.

Departure
of the queen
for France,
followed by
that of
Prince
Edward.

Philip V. died in January, 1322, and the homage of Edward for the provinces of Ponthieu and Gascony was forthwith demanded for his successor, Charles IV. A series of negotiations followed which early in 1324 led to a peremptory summons and a threat of forfeiture, no indistinct prelude to war. Edward might easily have crossed over to his brother-in-law’s court, as he had done more than once before, but the Despensers would not allow it. They dared not suffer him to escape from their direct control, they dared not accompany him; if he left them in England they knew their doom. The French court too was filled with their enemies; Roger Mortimer, the lord of Wigmore, who had been taken prisoner in 1322, had escaped from the Tower and gone to France. Henry of Lancaster was waiting to supplant them at home. War was the only alternative. Still negotiations proceeded. First Pembroke was sent; he died on the mission; then Edmund of Kent, the king’s half-brother; he failed to obtain terms. The king’s most trusted chaplains were sent to the Pope; but they spent their labor and treasure in securing their own promotion. At last in 1325 the queen went over. She parted apparently on the best terms with both Edward and the Despensers, and continued in friendly correspondence until she had prevailed on the king to send over his eldest son. It was arranged that the provinces should be made over to him and that he should do the homage. This was done in September, 1325, and almost immediately afterwards she threw off the mask. How long she had worn it we cannot tell. Possibly she left Edward in good faith and fell on her arrival in France into the hands of those who were embittered against him; possibly she was a conspirator long before. Anyhow the tie to the king, which could be so easily broken, could not, in the case of either mother or son, have been a strong one. As early as December the king was warned that Isabella and Edward would not return to him.

Intrigues of
Isabella
in France.

Quickly she gathered round her all whom the king had cause to fear. Roger Mortimer, whether by reason of passion or of policy, gained complete ascendency over her. The young Edward was instructed that it was his duty to deliver his father out of the hands of the Despensers or to deliver England out of the hand of Edward. Edmund of Kent, the king’s brother, was persuaded to join, and the conspirators, if not actually supported by promises from England, were too willing to believe that to be victorious they had only to show themselves. As the French king was slow to commit himself, Isabella contracted an alliance with the Count of Hainault, and obtained money from the Italian bankers. They furnished supplies, the count furnished men and ships.

Helplessness
of the king.

Landing of Isabella
on the
coast of Suffolk.

Edward knew all this, but he knew not how to meet it. In vain he summoned parliaments that would do nothing when they met, and ordered musters that would not meet at all. He found that all whom he trusted deceived him; that, except the Despensers and the two detested ministers, none even pretended to support him; and that he was obliged to depend on the very men who had the most to avenge. At last Isabella landed, on September, 24, 1326, on the coast of Suffolk, proclaiming herself the avenger of the blood of Lancaster and the sworn foe of the favorites. Edward, who was in London, tried to obtain help from the citizens, and prevailed on the bishops to excommunicate the invaders. But early in October he fled into the West, where he thought the Despensers were strong; on the 15th the Londoners rose and murdered the treasurer; Archbishop Reynolds retired into Kent and began to make terms with the queen.

Triumphant
march of Isabella
to the
West of England.

Fall of Bristol.

Overthrow and
deposition of
the king.

Murder of
Edward II.

She in the meantime moved on in triumph; Henry of Lancaster, the king’s brothers, the earls, save Arundel and Warenne, the bishops almost to a man, joined her either in person or with effective help. Adam Orlton, the Bishop of Hereford, who had been the confidential friend of Bohun, and Henry Burghersh, the Bishop of Lincoln, the nephew of Badlesmere, led the councils of aggression. They advanced by Oxford to attack Bristol, where they expected to find Edward and the Earl of Winchester. On October 26 the queen reached Bristol, but her husband had gone into Wales and was attempting to escape to Ireland. The capture of Bristol, however, was the closing event of his reign. The Earl of Winchester was hanged forthwith. The young Edward was declared by the lords on the spot guardian of the kingdom, and he summoned a parliament to meet in his father’s absence. The king, with Hugh le Despenser and Baldock, were taken on November 16; on the 17th the Earl of Arundel was beheaded at Hereford; on the 24th Hugh le Despenser was hanged, drawn and quartered at the same place. The parliament was to settle the fate of the king, and the parliament met at Westminster on January 7. There matters were formally discussed, but the conclusion was, as all the world knew, foregone. Even if any had thought that, now that the country was rid of the Despensers, the king might be allowed to reign on, the dread of the London mob and of the armed force which Mortimer brought up silenced them. The wretched archbishop declared that the voice of the people was the voice of God. Bishop Orlton, professing to believe that if the king were released the queen’s life would not be safe, insisted that the parliament should choose between father and son. Bishop Stratford of Winchester, who led the Lancaster party and had no love for Mortimer, drew the articles on which the sentence of renunciation was founded. The king, he said, was incompetent or too indolent to judge between right and wrong; he had obstinately refused the advice of the wise and listened to evil counsel; he had lost Ireland, Scotland, and Gascony, he had injured the Church, oppressed the barons, he had broken his coronation oath, and he was ruining the land. After some debate the articles were placed before the unhappy king, who confessed that they were true and that he was not worthy to reign. On January 20 he resigned the crown and the parliament renounced their allegiance and set his son in his place. For eight months longer he dragged on a miserable life, of which but little is known. Men told sad stories of suffering and insult which after his death provoked his kinsmen to avenge him, but none interfered to save him now. The reign of Mortimer and Isabella was a reign of terror; and before the terror abated Edward was murdered. The place of his death, the Castle of Berkeley, and the date, September 21, are known. Henry of Lancaster, who was at first appointed to guard him, had treated him too well. His new keepers, either prompted by the queen and Mortimer or anxious to win a reward, slew him in some secret way. And thus ended a reign full of tragedy, a life that may be pitied but affords no ground for sympathy. Strange infatuation, unbridled vindictiveness, recklessness beyond belief, the breach of all natural affection, of love, of honor, and loyalty, are here; but there is none who stands forth as a hero. There are great sins and great falls and awful vengeances, but nothing to admire, none to be praised.

Importance
and significance
of the
reign of
Edward II.

So the son of the great king Edward perished; and with a sad omen the first crowned head went down before the offended nation; with a sad omen, for it was not done in calm or righteous judgment. The unfaithful wife, the undutiful son, the vindictive prelate, the cowardly minister were unworthy instruments of a nation’s justice.

Such as it is, however, the reign of Edward II. is chiefly important as a period of transition. It winds up much that was left undone by his father; it is the seed-time of the influences which ripened under his son. The constitutional acts of 1309, 1310 and 1311 are the supplement to those of 1297; the tragedy of Piers Gaveston and Earl Thomas is the primary cause of much of the personal history that follows. So, too, the reign closes the great interest of Scottish warfare, and contains the germ of the long struggle with France. But viewed by itself its tragic interest is the greatest; and it is rich in moral and material lessons. It tells us that the greatest sin for which a king can be brought to account is not personal vice or active tyranny, but the dereliction of kingly duty; the selfish policy which treats the nation as if it were made for him, not he for the nation. It is the greatest sin and the greatest folly, for it at once draws down the penalty and leaves the sinner incapable of avoiding it or resisting it; it leaves the nation to be oppressed by countless tyrants, and is by so much worse than the tyranny of one. It allows the corruption of justice at the fountain’s head.

Constitutional
results
of the
epoch
closing with
his downfall.

So we close a long and varied epoch. The sum of its influences and results must be read in the history of the following age, in which, in many important points, the reign of Richard II. repeats the tragedy of Edward II.; and the struggles of York and Lancaster consummate the series of events which begin at Warwick and at Pomfret; in which the constitution that we have seen organized and consolidated under Henry II. and Edward I. is tested to the utmost, strained and bent and warped, but still survives to remedy the tyranny of the Tudors and overthrow the factitious absolutism of the Stewarts.