Yorkshire Battles

by Edward Lamplough

On the 1st of July, 1312, a dark and tragic deed was enacted on the gentle eminence of Blacklow, where the Avon winds through a calm and peaceful scene. The sun shone brightly on the flashing waters of the river, on the summer foliage of wood and grove, and on the polished steel mail of armed men, for the English barons, Arundel, Lancaster, and Hereford, were actors in the tragedy, and their banners waved from the ranks of numerous men-at-arms, pikemen, and archers, for at length, by mingled violence and guile, they had won into their own hands the life of the King’s favourite, and him they now called upon to conclude the drama of life with what spirit and courage he could command for so trying an occasion. Then stood forward the handsome and talented young knight, the favourite of his unhappy monarch, hurried by rough hands to the fatal block, and the grim headsman performed his unholy office, striking off the head of Piers Gaveston, sometime Earl of Cornwall, and—with all his faults—an accomplished knight, deserving of a better fate.

Chief of the self-constituted judges who thus presumed to rid themselves of a personal enemy, was Thomas Earl of Lancaster, the grandson of Henry the Third, and the most potent noble in the whole realm of England. To this exalted person, a prince of many virtues, Gaveston had humbled himself, and pleaded, but vainly pleaded, for mercy. Lancaster could not forgive the gibes of his fallen enemy. The “stage-player” and “old hog” now held the life of the offender in his hands; his proud heart indignantly remembered the shame and mortification of that day when, in the lists of the tournament, his haughty crest was abased to the very dust, as the lance of the upstart Gaveston hurled him from his saddle. So Lancaster avenged himself for defeat and unmerited insult, and the rude barons declared that he had done well.

But Edward of Cærnarvon remembered the deed of shame, and waited, as weak and gentle-minded men will sometimes wait, until circumstances should enable him to demand of Lancaster a full reckoning for the blood that had been shed. In the first bitterness of his wrath he attempted to meet the barons in the field, but they were too powerful for so unwarlike a monarch as Edward to contend with, and being averse to endanger the peace of the Kingdom by attacking the King in his own person, they submitted to his clemency, and were restored to favour. Persuaded to pardon the crime Edward would not legalize it by declaring Piers Gaveston a traitor, although importuned to take this step by the most powerful of the barons.

Time passed, and all men forgot the Gascon knight Piers Gaveston, or only remembered him to blame his follies and exult in the sharp and sudden punishment that overtook him.

After the triumphs achieved by Edward the I. in his attempts to subjugate Scotland, and destroy its national life by ruthlessly slaying her patriots with the soldier’s sword or the headsman’s axe, it was with extreme bitterness that the English endured the humiliation of defeated armies and invaded provinces. They had taken to the sword, and when that sword fell from the hands of Edward at Burgh-on-Sands it was seized by Randolph and Douglas, and mercilessly it was used, until in the invaded, blood-stained Northern provinces of England the fear and hatred of the Scots became a passion, and he was indeed a bold or foolish man who presumed to enter into negotiations with the national enemy.

Naturally King Edward’s hold upon the loyalty of his subjects was weakened by the Northern troubles, for the stubborn English mind regarded the red-handed crimes of the father as the virtuous enterprise of a great monarch, and contrasted with his success the feeble efforts of his son: it was the glory of Berwick and Falkirk contrasted with the disasters of Bannockburn and Berwick: it was the ravaged, outraged Scotland of the first Edward contrasted with the wasted and blood-stained Northumbria of the second Edward.

So troubles thickened around the life-path of Edward of Cærnarvon. His authority was subverted, and so low had he descended in the estimation of his feudatories, that Queen Isabella was denied admission into the King’s Castle of Leeds, in Kent, then held by the Lord of Badlesmere, under his majesty’s authority, and for his majesty’s use. The Queen’s attendants naturally insisted upon being admitted, and endeavoured to force their way into the castle, when the garrison proceeded to extremities, and several of her majesty’s suite were slain. This high-handed proceeding of Badlesmere caused a revulsion of feeling in favour of the King, and availing himself of the transient emotion, he gathered together a powerful army. For once his actions were energetic, and his blows fell heavily. He took Badlesmere prisoner, and loaded him with chains, at the same time inflicting a heavy and well-merited punishment upon his lawless vassals. He made an unexpected visit to the Lords of the Marches, and captured and hanged twelve knights. Like all weak-minded men he knew no moderation in the hour of success, and presumed more upon a transient advantage than a great monarch would have done if successful in the utter destruction of a hostile party.

This sudden change in the royal fortunes alarmed the barons, and many made submission; but Edward cast them into prison, and seized their castles. Great Lancaster was now sorely discomposed, and learned, too late, to fear the monarch whose authority he had so openly slighted. It had been long suspected that this potent noble had entered into a confederacy with the Scots, to avert the doom which would probably overtake him if deserted by the English barons, or defeated by the royal forces. The time had now arrived when it was necessary to call in the national enemy to his rescue; and in this crisis of his fortunes he openly avowed his unpatriotic measures, took up arms, and urgently appealed to the King of Scotland for assistance. Before those redoubtable warriors, Moray and Douglas, assembled their men-at-arms and pikemen, the promptitude of Edward had prevailed.

Finding that he could not maintain himself against King Edward until succoured by the Scottish reinforcements, Lancaster marched northward, and was joined by the Earl of Hereford. This accession of strength did not, however, enable him to assume the offensive, although it encouraged him to make a stand at Burton-upon-Trent, where he took up a position that commanded the bridge, in the vain hope of holding the royal forces at bay, and of receiving reinforcements from the disaffected barons.

The noble blood that had already been shed in requital of treason against the crown had operated forcibly upon the reasoning faculties of Edward’s violent and restless barons, and they prudently kept their steeds in stall, and swords in scabbard, leaving Lancaster and Hereford, with their band of adherents, to make the best of their quarrel with the King, alone, and unaided, unless they could succeed in reaching the Scottish border and forming a junction with the Scots under Randolph and Douglas. It would have fared ill with the nation if Lancaster’s design had succeeded, for although Robert Bruce was too wise a monarch to attempt to annex any of the English territory, being satisfied to strictly maintain the integrity of the Kingdom of Scotland, yet Lancaster might have involved the nation in the distractions of a wide-extending civil war, for placed in so desperate a position he would necessarily have urged the Scots to press any advantage that their arms might have achieved, and although the resistance of the English would have been the rising of the nation against a foreign invader, yet Lancaster might have succeeded in winning over some of the barons, especially as Edward knew not the art of attaching them to his interests, but was possessed of an unhappy facility in disgusting them by his too-obvious lack of the qualities necessary to a great prince in the middle ages.