The king had seized the reins of government; this he announced to his subjects in dissolving the Parliament and convoking a new representative assembly at Westminster. On the 26th of November, 1330, the favorite was cited before his judges, the king himself being present at the trial. His crimes were notorious; and consequently the decision did not long remain doubtful. As he had put Hugh le Despencer to death without allowing him time to make any defence, Mortimer was himself drawn to Tyburn and hanged, with Sir Simon Beresford, one of his accomplices. His property, however, was not confiscated, and his family retained the title of Earl of March, which had been granted by the queen to her favorite. Isabel was imprisoned in the castle of Rising, treated with respect by her son, who paid a visit to her every year and ministered liberally to all her necessities; but she never again left the retreat, in which she lived for more than twenty-seven years afterwards. The Regent of Scotland, the Earl of Moray, was dead. The valiant Douglas had been slain in an expedition against the Moors of Spain, the first episode in the crusade which he had undertaken in company with the heart of Bruce. Scotland was now governed by the Earl of Mar, a warrior far inferior to the great champions of liberty, the friends and supporters of Robert Bruce. The time had come when England was to be raised out of the disgrace of the last treaty. The pretensions of Edward Baliol, the son of the exiled king, were advanced by several English peers who had been deprived of property pertaining to them in Scotland. Baliol advanced into the northern counties, and a certain number of Scottish malcontents crossed the frontier and rallied round his standard.
He then marched into Scotland, but soon confronted two armies superior to his own; a skilful movement, however, placed the invaders in an advantageous position; the Earl of Mar imprudently gave battle in a defile on Duplin Heath, where he and many others were defeated and killed. Baliol had had time to fortify himself within Perth before the arrival of the Earl of Mar, and the Scottish fleet was destroyed by the little squadron brought over by the pretender. Baliol's forces were increasing day by day; he was crowned at Scone on the 2nd of September, having secretly renewed to King Edward III. the allegiance which his father had rendered to Edward I.
But the crown thus acquired in seven weeks was destined to be lost in less than three months. On the night of the 16th of December, the new king was taken by surprise at Annan, in the county of Dumfries, by a Scottish corps under the command of the young Earl of Moray and Sir Archibald Douglas. Baliol, in a semi-naked condition, and mounted upon a barebacked horse, which, for want of time, he had been unable to properly equip, contrived to escape to the English frontier, leaving his father, Henry, dead behind him. King Edward received him so amicably that the Scottish people, indignant at the support accorded the pretender, invaded the northern counties of England on several occasions, carrying their ravages to such an extent that King Edward determined to enter Scotland. In the month of May, 1333, he joined Baliol, who, during two months, had been besieging the town of Berwick. The garrison was preparing to surrender, when, on the 19th of July, Archibald Douglas, now regent of Scotland, appeared in sight of the town. The English army was posted on the heights of Halidon Hill, protected by the marshes. The Scots were excited by the peril threatening Berwick; they attacked the enemy in spite of obstacles. Arrows fell thick in their midst during their passage across the marshes, and disorder had already broken out in their ranks, when they began their fierce onslaught on the hill. The assault was so vigorous that for a moment victory seemed to incline in their favor; but the regent fell, and with him and beside him his most valiant knights. King Edward sprang forward in pursuit of the Scots, who were beginning to fly. Lord Darcy, who was in command of the Irish peasants who had joined as auxiliaries, slaughtered the stragglers. Scotland had never suffered so lamentable a defeat. King David and his wife took refuge in France, and spent several years at Château-Gaillard. Baliol was reinstalled upon the throne, not, however, without ceding to his powerful ally the finest counties in the south of Scotland, to the general indignation of the Scottish people. They soon compelled him to take refuge in the territory which he had thus abandoned, and there he maintained his position with great difficulty, although supported from time to time by fresh troops from England. A more ambitious project had been formed in the mind of the King of England, and the war with Scotland languished while Edward was dreaming of conquering France.
The King of France, Charles IV., surnamed the Fair, had died in 1328; and, a short time after his death, the queen his wife had given birth to a daughter. The Salic law prohibiting the accession of females to the throne, the peers of the kingdom and the States-general had decreed that the crown belonged to the cousin of the deceased king, Philip of Valois, grandson of Philip the Bold, by his youngest son, Charles of Valois; and the new sovereign had taken undisputed possession of the throne. King Edward III. was scarcely sixteen years of age, and, although maintaining from that time forth, in England, that his right was superior to that of Philip of Valois, his mother Isabel being the daughter of Philip the Fair, he accepted the invitation of the King of France to render fealty and homage to him for the Duchy of Aquitaine, and again performed the same ceremony in 1331, when he had attained his majority and was king de facto. But, in 1336, the young King of England felt that he was securely seated upon his throne, and being piqued by the support which Philip of Valois openly gave to the Scotch, he publicly declared that the peers of France and the States-general had acted as rogues and robbers rather than as judges, and that for the future he would not recognize their decisions, but would maintain his own just rights. Thus began that disastrous war which has been called the "Hundred Years' War," but which, in reality, was waged from 1338 until 1453, during the reigns of five kings of France—Philip VI., John the Good, Charles V., Charles VI., and Charles VII.—and of as many kings of England—Edward III., Richard II., Henry IV., Henry V., and Henry VI. It cost the lives of millions of men, brought plague and famine with it, and caused unheard-of misery, without any result for the two nations other than a feeling of international hatred which has scarcely died out in our own time.
The preparations on both sides were gigantic. The English people looked with favor upon the war against France, and, in spite of the Magna Charta, the king was allowed to seize the Cornish tin and all the wool grown during the year, although they had already granted him all the subsidies and loans which he had demanded. Edward embarked at Orwell on the 15th of July, 1338, and landed four days afterwards at Antwerp. The Count of Flanders was an ally of the King of France, but his towns scarcely obeyed him, as they were then under the influence of a brewer of Ghent, named Jacques van Arteveldt, who contracted a friendship with King Edward. He had negotiated with even more illustrious allies; the Emperor of Germany, the Dukes of Brabant and Gueldres, the Counts of Hainault and Namur. All had received his money; but the troops did not arrive, and when, on the 1st of July, 1339, the King of England at length succeeded in crossing the French frontier, the Counts of Namur and Hainault immediately abandoned him, and his other confederates soon did likewise. The king was compelled to return, after having, by the advice of Arteveldt, assumed the title of King of France, and added to his coat of arms the lily side by side with the lions of England. The Parliament, as ardent in the cause of the war as the king himself, voted enormous subsidies, and, on the 22nd of June, 1340, Edward again left England, to attack the French vessels of war, huddled together in the port of Sluys. Queen Philippa had accompanied her husband, taking with her a great number of ladies in waiting. The French and Genoese vessels hired by King Philip were numerous and very large; when they sailed out of port, attached together by iron chains and formed in four divisions, and advanced to dispute his passage, Edward uttered a cry of joy. "Ah!" said he, "I have long desired to fight with the French. So shall I meet some of them to-day, by the grace of God and St. George." He began to gain the offing; his adversaries already imagined that he declined an engagement, but he was really desirous of avoiding the ardent rays of the sun and of attacking briskly the first division of the French fleet, of which he soon made himself master in spite of a vigorous resistance.
The Battle Of Sluys.