Bruce invades England.—Edward recovers power.
Though victorious in Ireland, the English under Lancaster's rule were unable to keep their own borders safe. Bruce took Berwick, ravaged Durham, and cut the whole shire-levy of Yorkshire to pieces at Mytton bridge. In despair, Lancaster asked for a truce, and obtained it (1320). But the temporary cessation of the Scottish war only gave the opportunity for the English to come to blows in civil strife. Thomas of Lancaster had by this time made so many enemies, that the king was able to gather together a party against him: though slow and idle, Edward was unforgiving, and well remembered that he had Gaveston's blood to avenge. He found his chief supporters in the two Despensers, West-country barons, the son and grandson of that Despenser who had been Simon de Montfort's Justiciar, and had fallen at Evesham. Taking advantage of the times, Edward assembled an army under the plea that he must chastise a baron named Baddlesmere, who had rudely excluded Queen Isabella from Leeds Castle, in Kent, when she wished to enter. Having taken Leeds and hung its garrison, the king with a most unexpected show of energy suddenly turned on Lancaster. Earl Thomas called out his friends, and the Earl of Hereford, Lord Mortimer, and many of the barons of the Welsh Marches rose in his favour. He was forced, however, to fly north when the king pursued him, and had made his way as far as Boroughbridge, in Yorkshire, when he found himself intercepted by the shire-levies of the north, headed by Harclay, the Governor of Carlisle. A battle followed, in which Hereford was slain and Lancaster taken prisoner.
Vengeance of Edward. 1322.
The king was now able to wreak his long-delayed vengeance for Gaveston's murder. He sent Earl Thomas to the block, and hung or beheaded eight barons and thirty knights of his party. Lord Mortimer and the rest were stripped of their lands and banished. These wholesale executions and confiscations not only provoked the baronage, but caused the nation to look on Earl Thomas as a martyr, though he was in fact nothing better than a selfish and turbulent adventurer.
Rule of the Despensers, 1322-26.
Edward, having taken his revenge, subsided into his former listlessness and sloth, handing over the whole conduct of affairs to his new ministers, the two Despensers. Father and son alike were unwise, greedy, and arrogant; they used the king's name for their own ends, and soon made themselves as well hated as Gaveston had been ten years before. Yet for four years they maintained themselves in power, even after they had advised the king to take the necessary but unpopular step of acknowledging Bruce as King of Scotland, and concluding a truce for thirteen years with him.
Queen Isabella and Mortimer.—Fall of the Despensers.
The slothful Edward and the arrogant Despensers soon tired out the patience of England, and they fell before the first blow levelled against them. The blow came from an unexpected quarter. Edward's wife, Isabella of France, was visiting the court of her brother, Charles IV., on a diplomatic mission concerning some frontier feuds in Guienne. At Paris she met and became desperately enamoured of the exiled Marcher-baron, Roger Mortimer. He drew her into a conspiracy against her husband; by his advice she induced her young son Edward, the heir of England, to cross over and join her. When the boy was safely in her hands, she sent to King Edward to bid him dismiss the Despensers, because they had wronged and insulted her. When he refused, she and Mortimer gathered a force of Flemish mercenaries and crossed to England. They had already enlisted the support of the kinsmen and friends of Lancaster, Hereford, Baddlesmere, and the other barons who had been slain in 1322. On landing in Suffolk, Isabella was at once joined by them, and found herself at the head of a large army. Edward and his unpopular ministers fled towards Wales; but the elder Despenser was caught at Bristol and promptly hanged. His son Hugh and the king were captured three weeks later; the former was executed, while his master was taken under guard to London (November, 1326).
Edward deposed.—His son proclaimed king.
The queen then summoned a Parliament in the name of her son, Prince Edward. Articles were placed before it, accusing the king of breaking his coronation oath, of wilfully neglecting the right governance of the land, of promoting unworthy favourites, of losing Scotland and Ireland, and of slaying his enemies without just cause or a fair trial. The Parliament pronounced him unfit to reign, deposed him, and elected his young son to fill his throne in his stead.